Parents DD is too competitive - help

[HappyMom]

Hi everyone! I'm new here and am so excited to have a great place to ask questions and learn. My DD's are both in rec gymnastics (young 6 and young 4), having just started gymnastics this year. Oldest DD has taken to gymnastics like a duck to water (and will be moving to pre-team this summer). I constantly overhear the coaches talking to each other about how talented she is, how she could be an Olympian if she could just harness her energy (which made me laugh - I have no dreams of raising the next star on the Olympics, just someone who may have found one of her passions), how strong she is, etc. I'm not trying to be a CGM and all braggy (promise!!), but just giving some back story...it will feed into my question, I promise.

My DD is naturally athletic (she gets it from her daddy) and is super strong/good at most everything she tries - soccer (star of team), track (constantly beats everyone), gymnastics (she picks it up super quickly). She's always good at whatever she tries.

Which leads into my question. She's so super competitive. It's ridiculous. Seriously. If she isn't winning in a race against me or husband, she gets frustrated, sometimes quits, and tells us it's not fair because we're older than her (she's super fast though) - same with racing kids. She's used to beating everyone, even kids that are 2-3 years older than her. If she doesn't score enough goals or a goal in soccer (a number set by her...never us), she gets frustrated and sometimes cries. In gymnastics class, if another girl is moving down the balance beam faster doing whatever skill they're practicing, even if DD#1 is doing the skill cleaner and better, then she gets frustrated b/c "X is just trying to beat me and get to the end of the beam first" or, if on the floor, "X is just trying to do her cartwheels faster than me" (even if DD's cartwheels are beautiful - toes pointed, legs straight, clean form, etc).

They have been talking about wanting to move her to pre-team (they say she's definitely talented enough, as well as fearless, strong, willing to try new things, etc). However, they're concerned about her competitiveness. Which is absolutely fair. If it helped make her a better gymnast, that's one thing, but she is so worried about being first to finish, that she stops focusing on form, doing it right, etc to just get it done.

I will say that we've never let her win at anything. She has to earn it. Letting kids win only does them a disservice. So when we play Candy Land, Memory, Uno, races, soccer, etc - she has to win on her own. We've never catered to the crying, so what on earth???

I need suggestions and ideas - how do I curb the super competitiveness????

They're having team tryouts and they suggested DD try out (she won't be making team...but it will help place kids in the correctly level on pre-team, I guess). I know she LOVES gymnastics, but I want to curb this crazy competitiveness early before it becomes a bigger deal than it already is (and it's a kind of big deal. I'm over it.) This post is very rambly and I'm sorry, but I need help/suggestions!

 

[EastCoastGymMom]

From what I've seen, kids who are that competitive against other kids (rather than themselves) can have a very hard time in gymnastics. There are going to be times when other girls pick up skills quicker or do them better or get more of the coach's attention. There are four events, plus conditioning and flexibility. It's not possible to be THE BEST at every event all the time. I think those type of kids also struggle with making friends in their training group. She's only six, but if she's that ultra competitive, then gymnastics may be very stressful for her. I say this from personal experience - watching a couple of team gymnasts I know well (and I sometimes wonder how long they'll last in the sport, even though they are very talented).

Does she understand that practice is not a race? That it doesn't matter who does the skills more quickly, it's about doing her best and having good form? Maybe the coach can point that out to her. It sounds like she could be a good gymnast if she can focus her competitiveness on doing her best rather than "winning." She will need a coach who understands her personality. I think gymnastics can be tough because even though you are on a team, but you are also competing against your teammates - at practice and at meets.

 

[HoldThePhone]

My daughter is also very competitive, but I think with gymnastics, she understands that skills are not races. It sounds like your daughter is more concerned with who finishes first, and I think anytime she brought it up, I'd explain what they're actually supposed to be doing and that it's not a race.

My daughter and I were arm wrestling a couple nights ago, she's 4, and I'm not so of course I'm going to win (we don't let her win either) well when she lost, she cried, immediately. I laughed at her and said she was being silly that of course I was going to win. Then my husband and I arm wrestled to show her that everyone has strengths, and even though I beat her, he was able to beat me. We all may be better at something than someone else, but no matter what, it's very likely that someone out there will always be better at it than you are, so the best we can do is be the best we can be. She was happy after that, and we talked a bit more about when it's ok to cry, and why when we lose it's not okay to cry. We speak very matter of factly, and if she continues to cry over such trivial things we just walk away from her (at home). She comes to her senses eventually and has a much greater understanding of the way things are than I did at 4 I'm sure.

 

[gymmiemom]

First I just want to say that in my opinion there is nothing wrong with wanting to win But with that said, there are appropriate ways to manage those feelings and kids have to learn that. It sounds like my own 7 year old DD is alot like yours. Mine is also completely full of self confidence. She is 100% sure that she is going to win every meet we go to. So when she didn't win 1st in everything at her very first meet last year there was a major meltdown. Like an embarrasing one. It was one of my most horrifying moments as a parent (no joke), thankfully it was only witnessed by the parents from our gym and didn't happen during the awards ceremony.

We had a very long talk about sportsmanship (which of course I had talked to her about before). And I pretty much told her in no uncertain terms that if she wasn't a big enough girl to handle her disappointment appropriately then maybe she wasn't big enough to be on team yet. That was enough to straighten her up. She never for the rest of the season shed a tear of disppointment in public.

Now with all of THAT said, she still thinks she is going to win every meet . And she has won a few. "Losing" that first meet in her eyes, was enough motivation to take gym even more seriously than she already did.

Within the gym though she isn't competitive when it comes to skills or with her teammates at all. She gets that girls will get different skills at different times and that is ok with her. She is very encouraging and cheers them on with all her heart, and they in turn do the same for her. Our coach is very good about emphasizing the fact that they are a team. They spend more time with each other than they do with their own siblings, it is like a family there. Pretty much our coach doesn't tolerate pettiness or them competeing with each other. Of course there is some level of healthy competition, but it isn't talked about or emphasized, if that makes sense.

Maybe you need to just be honest with your daughter after try outs. Tell her the coach thinks she might be ready for team but she can't do that until he sees her attitude improve. I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

 

[Gymmommy71]

She does track at 6 YO? The earliest possible track competitions around me don't even start until 3-4th grade and you have to seek those out. It's a "not until middle school" activitiy in my area. I've just never heard of a 6 YO in track...

DD has encountered several "hyper competitive" kids over her years of competiting in dance, gymnastics and cheer...the worst type tend to only be happy and friendly w/ other kids when they are beating them. DD has one on her team right now and dealing w/ her is DD's biggest non-physical challenge at gymnastics right now because my DD is very socially aware and can totally pick up on this girl's body language and changes in demeanor at meets because it follows how her scores go in relationship to her teammates (not really numbers either - girl could get a 9.25 and then another girl on her team goes up and gets a 9.3, the kid is devasted and totally shuts down until she beats everyone on the next event and then she becomes nice again).

I will say, however, that from what I've seen, these competitive kids do very well the majority of the time, so I'm sure she will be great at whatever sport she does - that competitive drive will cause them to push themselves and perform under pressue much better, so it's really not a problem for the kid per se, but the rest of her teammates may not particularly like her very much if they are astute enough to pick up on the competitiveness. A way to tone it down that I could think of would be to put her in a position where she's with A LOT of really great gymnasts on her team to that point where she'll HAVE to learn to accept not always being the best early on. I find however, that sometimes, parents w/ kids like this actively seek out team situations where their kids will shine - for instance, they CHOOSE to have their kid repeat a level against the gym recommendations that they move up so that their kid will dominate all the awards the second year.

How would you say your daughter reacts when she doesn't win? How does she treat the person who wins over her?

 

[MaryA]

When my DD first started competing (I guess she was about to turn 7?) she had no clue that it was a competition. Everybody got ribbons. Of course, some got medals (at least I think they did... gosh that seems like so long ago) but DD was happy with her pretty colored ribbons (didn't care what color they were) and her goodie bag. Do you think your DD "gets" that gymnastics is a competitive sport? I mean, running a race, playing candyland, sure... there's an obvious winner. But I think a meet situation seemed to my daughter more just like a chance to show off what she had learned. She said she liked meets because they made her feel "famous" (even though those first couple of years she was never anywhere NEAR the podium). I guess I would say, let her try out for the team. Totally downplay any competitive aspect of gymnastics. If it comes up, just keep telling her, "In gymnastics you are only competing against yourself. You just want to try to do things better today than you did at your last practice (or meet), and if you do that, then you win." If it becomes an issue, then deal with it, including by taking gymnastics away if she is not behaving appropriately. But I wouldn't withold the opportunity from her just because it may be an issue. This may be a good venue for her to learn how to harness her competitive spirit. Good luck to you! It sounds like you have a firecracker on your hands!

 

[rsm]

I think your DD will slowly get better as she matures. I've seen slow improvements in my DD in the last year. She is a young 7 yo now. A year ago, she literally took everything as a race. e.g. If another girl was passing her doing bridge walks, she would go faster so she wouldn't be passed. For the floor routine, I think her reasoning was that the faster she did it, the higher her score. Not a whole lot of attention to form was happening. She actually does not care as much about scores and placement at meets, but if someone else gets a skill before she does, she is not happy. She is happiest when she does something first (or close to first) even if it's with horrible form. I found this out this week with the FHS.

So from my little experience, I'd say just keep doing what you're doing. Your DD will grow to understand on her own. My only advice to DD when she is crying and says she wants to do better, is to "listen to your coaches, do what they ask you to do, and work hard". Paying attention is probably our biggest weakness at this point. But you get used to the crying, because it probably won't end, although it will get better. And if you reinforce that she just needs to do the best SHE can do, it will eventually start sinking in. We still have a ways to go, but it's way better than a year ago

 

[cbifoja]

I also think that is a maturity issue but also could morph into some seriously poor sportsmanship (sportsgirlship?). Stress empathy like crazy!!! Ask her if she thinks less than those who lost to her. Ask her how she thinks it feels to lose to someone who is gracious about it and compare it to how it would feel to lose to someone unkind about it. Have her role play winning graciously and losing graciously. Have her role play losing to someone who gloats about it.

Tell her that learning to lose is just as important as winning and that there are things you learn from losing that you don't learn from always winning. Mine was never as hyper competitive as you describe yours but she did get a bit cocky. Having her skip a level and get knocked down to the edges of the podium and being excluded from the podium helped quite a bit.

A lot of kids excel at L3/L4 that go on to get their little butts kicked in the higher compulsories so her day may come. But then again, she just may be one of those lucky lucky kids who wins everything all the time. Only time will tell. But in the meantime, anything you can do to help her put herself in someone else's shoes will help.

 

[bookworm]

I would just lay down the law with her about her behavior and how the way she is currently reacting to competition is unacceptable. I know she is only 6 but if it's not nipped in the bud, it will get ugly. And I would also do what gymmiemom suggests, tell her that while she is talented and coaches think she has the potential to be on team, until her attitude and behavior changes, it's not happening.

 

[cbifoja]

One other thing just for you to be aware of.....

We had a compulsory gymnast, let's call her Betty. Betty was beautiful and everything came so easily for her. I don't think she was out of the top 3 for any event or all around throughout her entire compulsory career. Everyone wanted to be as good as Betty was.

Then Betty moved to optionals. The skills got harder and it took longer to learn them and longer to make them look as good as her other skills did. Betty went to her first optional meet and wasn't top 3....wasn't even top 5. She came back very dejected because she hadn't learned how to lose.

She refused to compete L7 and insisted on being in prep-op. But the skills she was working were still hard and she still had to work harder than she was used to. Betty asked to be dropped down to a lower prep op level but the coach told her that this would be unfair to the other competitors when Betty obviously had the skill level that wasn't appropriate for the lower prep op levels.

Betty no longer does gymnastics. She never learned to lose. She never learned perseverance. She never learned patience and how to get back up after you've fallen for the 6000th time on the same skill. If it didn't come easy, she didn't know how to work for it.

If you help your daughter through this, maybe she won't be a Betty.

 

[sjm2b3]

Two of my kids are very competitive. They are both on team. My DS is the type of kid that you describe, who needs to be the fastest, the smartest, I could go on and on. What we have done is reward attitude. For DS, he loves comic books, so starting last year we always 'rewarded' him with a book IF he kept a positive attitude through the entire meet and did not pout after. I'm not huge on bribes, but in this case it has worked perfectly. After a 6 event meet, he would just be mentally exhausted (7 at the time), and he would smile and dive into his comic book and forget any mistakes that were made. This year we really focused on telling everyone good job on the podium, and we basically said if there was ANY bad attitude, there would be no more meets. Now, there's a big difference between him commenting after a meet--I wish I could do pommel horse again, I know I can do better, and him pouting, so when he made that type of comment we complimented him like crazy!!!!!

Coaching is very important with competitive kids too. At our first gym, everything was a contest and he would always win and was definitely getting a big head. Things are not that way at our current gym--they do contests but the coaches make sure to play up everyone's strengths so it's more even.

As far as DD--we really just tried to put the focus on skills in level 4 and not scores or places, although we did celebrate successes with her. She tends to be more goal oriented so she has a notebook where she writes in new tricks, and we focus on that vs comparing with teammates, etc. I think she's probably even more competitive than my DS, she just hides it better and it comes out when she needs it......

 

[shelovestoflip]

My daughter is very competitive with herself...she's a perfectionist and wants to work hard. However she is a team player and loves to see her teammates learn new skills. There is one girl on her team that is not necessarily the kindest kid on the block...always 'showing off' and saying she learned x skill first etc.

Guess what...she's the girl that the kids 'like' the least. Yes, they tolerate her but she's not the one they like to be with!

I think at 6 your daughter should begin learning that gymnastics is not a race. There's not a finish line and if she's a kid who wants to win then this might not be the sport for her.

We have a friend who is a swimmer and all her daughter needs to do is touch the wall first. My daughter often says, "mom, that's easy compared to gymnastics.

I agree!

IF she is 6, they may be considering pre team or team for some girls. I would think they will look at group dynamics, at least a bit. I'd say consider if your daughter can manage the sport long term. She might not always 'win'.

My daughter (just finished her 1st year Level 8) has learned to notice the little things...."My best beam dismount" or "My highest score of the season"

I think they need to learn to look at where they were and how far they've come.

Good luck!

 

[Jenny]

One other thing just for you to be aware of.....

We had a compulsory gymnast, let's call her Betty. Betty was beautiful and everything came so easily for her. I don't think she was out of the top 3 for any event or all around throughout her entire compulsory career. Everyone wanted to be as good as Betty was.

Then Betty moved to optionals. The skills got harder and it took longer to learn them and longer to make them look as good as her other skills did. Betty went to her first optional meet and wasn't top 3....wasn't even top 5. She came back very dejected because she hadn't learned how to lose.

She refused to compete L7 and insisted on being in prep-op. But the skills she was working were still hard and she still had to work harder than she was used to. Betty asked to be dropped down to a lower prep op level but the coach told her that this would be unfair to the other competitors when Betty obviously had the skill level that wasn't appropriate for the lower prep op levels.

Betty no longer does gymnastics. She never learned to lose. She never learned perseverance. She never learned patience and how to get back up after you've fallen for the 6000th time on the same skill. If it didn't come easy, she didn't know how to work for it.

If you help your daughter through this, maybe she won't be a Betty.

I call this the princess factor. It is very real and it happens often. Sometimes coaches even foster the princess factor and parents often do. And the fear of losing can also be a very big thing.

 

[wallflower]

I have no answer to the competitiveness because my kid is so non competitive. She just does gymnastics and loves it. No stress on her part.

I do have to comment though because this struck me as very odd. I'd be concerned about any rec coaches or any coaches for that matter that are looking at a 6 year old doing cartwheels in a rec class and saying she could be an olympian. Even if they are the best cartwheels ever done in the history of the world. Coaches know there is a long road between cartwheels and the olympics. It's not something that coaches really walk around talking about at any reputable gym I've been in. Makes you think of one of those bad TV movies where the coach is trying to get the parent to commit to more gymnastics because they certainly have Olympic potential!

 

[bookworm]

.
I do have to comment though because this struck me as very odd. I'd be concerned about any rec coaches or any coaches for that matter that are looking at a 6 year old doing cartwheels in a rec class and saying she could be an olympian. Even if they are the best cartwheels ever done in the history of the world. Coaches know there is a long road between cartwheels and the olympics. It's not something that coaches really walk around talking about at any reputable gym I've been in. Makes you think of one of those bad TV movies where the coach is trying to get the parent to commit to more gymnastics because they certainly have Olympic potential!

That struck me as odd too because the kid isn't even on team yet...and I agree , it was probably a marketing tool...

 

[MaryA]

I assumed that was a joke. "If we could harness her energy, she could be an Olympian!" The same way I say, "If I could have DD's energy for just one day, I could get my entire 'to do' list done in one fell swoop!"

 

[HappyMom]

Wow! Thanks so much for taking the time to reply everyone. I realized, reading a lot of the comments, that I may not have been clear on a few things and that (as I sat and thought about it), she's made a lot of growth in the last couple of months.

We don't cater to the pouting and never have. She knows it's unacceptable and we don't approve. We've been talking about sportmanship, empathy (how would you feel if you did well and someone acted like this?), how you won't win at everything, etc. I wasn't clear that she's been doing really well in gymnastics class curbing it. Actually, in a majority of areas, now that I think about it, I have seen an improvement. Is it where *I* think it should be? No. But she does seem to be getting better - where a comment (does your attitude change things? Does it make anyone, including you, feel good? What could/should you do?) is redirecting and helping v. before when she couldn't shake out of it. Her coach commented to me that she's made leaps and bounds improvements in her attitude since January/February.

I *do* remind her that class is not a competition, that no one is "trying to beat her", and that the point of class is to learn the skills, how to do them properly (and safely), and have fun. She only needs to worry about herself and whether she's doing it right/trying her best. Most days, that reminder is enough, but every now and then, her inner competitive girl comes out.

She does track at 6 YO? The earliest possible track competitions around me don't even start until 3-4th grade and you have to seek those out. It's a "not until middle school" activitiy in my area. I've just never heard of a 6 YO in track...

I guess I shouldn't have said track. She's part of the Y's running club and they do sprints, etc. She dominates those (it's her long legs...). She hasn't run in a race over a mile (that's the distance the running club does at the end of the month), but she always done really well at the mile (maybe not first overall, but first in her age group). As I said...she's a natural athlete.

[/QUOTE]DD has encountered several "hyper competitive" kids over her years of competiting in dance, gymnastics and cheer...the worst type tend to only be happy and friendly w/ other kids when they are beating them. DD has one on her team right now and dealing w/ her is DD's biggest non-physical challenge at gymnastics right now because my DD is very socially aware and can totally pick up on this girl's body language and changes in demeanor at meets because it follows how her scores go in relationship to her teammates (not really numbers either - girl could get a 9.25 and then another girl on her team goes up and gets a 9.3, the kid is devasted and totally shuts down until she beats everyone on the next event and then she becomes nice again).

I will say, however, that from what I've seen, these competitive kids do very well the majority of the time, so I'm sure she will be great at whatever sport she does - that competitive drive will cause them to push themselves and perform under pressue much better, so it's really not a problem for the kid per se, but the rest of her teammates may not particularly like her very much if they are astute enough to pick up on the competitiveness. A way to tone it down that I could think of would be to put her in a position where she's with A LOT of really great gymnasts on her team to that point where she'll HAVE to learn to accept not always being the best early on. I find however, that sometimes, parents w/ kids like this actively seek out team situations where their kids will shine - for instance, they CHOOSE to have their kid repeat a level against the gym recommendations that they move up so that their kid will dominate all the awards the second year.

How would you say your daughter reacts when she doesn't win? How does she treat the person who wins over her?[/QUOTE]

She gets really upset. Mostly with herself. She's nice to those who "beat" her (the winning is all her in mind right now). Lots of great jobs, that was a good kick (in soccer), you did great on the bar/beam/etc, those were good back handsprings, etc. So the disappointment in mostly in herself. She's happiest when winning (what person isn't?), but I want her to learn that if she tries/does her best, then it's okay. And I think that'll come with age.

Her coach actually said the move up to team might be really good for her - she will be surrounded by people much better than her, so she'll have to learn how to deal with that quickly. We're in agreement that if it doesn't work out this summer, then we'll move her to the higher rec level instead of pre-team.

When my DD first started competing (I guess she was about to turn 7?) she had no clue that it was a competition. Everybody got ribbons. Of course, some got medals (at least I think they did... gosh that seems like so long ago) but DD was happy with her pretty colored ribbons (didn't care what color they were) and her goodie bag. Do you think your DD "gets" that gymnastics is a competitive sport? I mean, running a race, playing candyland, sure... there's an obvious winner. But I think a meet situation seemed to my daughter more just like a chance to show off what she had learned. She said she liked meets because they made her feel "famous" (even though those first couple of years she was never anywhere NEAR the podium). I guess I would say, let her try out for the team. Totally downplay any competitive aspect of gymnastics. If it comes up, just keep telling her, "In gymnastics you are only competing against yourself. You just want to try to do things better today than you did at your last practice (or meet), and if you do that, then you win." If it becomes an issue, then deal with it, including by taking gymnastics away if she is not behaving appropriately. But I wouldn't withold the opportunity from her just because it may be an issue. This may be a good venue for her to learn how to harness her competitive spirit. Good luck to you! It sounds like you have a firecracker on your hands!

LOL at taking gymnastics away. I've threatened that before and she knew I was serious. Come to think of it, that's when her attitude made a huge turn around. It still comes back, but it's not as bad. And it's mostly over silly things (ie, who gets to the end of beam while practicing a skill first). But I have been very clear her attitude doesn't help her or those around her, doesn't make her pleasant to be around, and will get her taken out of sports/gymnastics if it continues.

I think your DD will slowly get better as she matures. I've seen slow improvements in my DD in the last year. She is a young 7 yo now. A year ago, she literally took everything as a race. e.g. If another girl was passing her doing bridge walks, she would go faster so she wouldn't be passed. For the floor routine, I think her reasoning was that the faster she did it, the higher her score. Not a whole lot of attention to form was happening. She actually does not care as much about scores and placement at meets, but if someone else gets a skill before she does, she is not happy. She is happiest when she does something first (or close to first) even if it's with horrible form. I found this out this week with the FHS.

So from my little experience, I'd say just keep doing what you're doing. Your DD will grow to understand on her own. My only advice to DD when she is crying and says she wants to do better, is to "listen to your coaches, do what they ask you to do, and work hard". Paying attention is probably our biggest weakness at this point. But you get used to the crying, because it probably won't end, although it will get better. And if you reinforce that she just needs to do the best SHE can do, it will eventually start sinking in. We still have a ways to go, but it's way better than a year ago

THANK YOU for letting me know I'm not the only one! Your DD sounds like my DD a lot...and in thinking about it after I posted, I realized it's gotten better in the past 3 months, so hopefully it'll get better as she gets older.

I also think that is a maturity issue but also could morph into some seriously poor sportsmanship (sportsgirlship?). Stress empathy like crazy!!! Ask her if she thinks less than those who lost to her. Ask her how she thinks it feels to lose to someone who is gracious about it and compare it to how it would feel to lose to someone unkind about it. Have her role play winning graciously and losing graciously. Have her role play losing to someone who gloats about it.

Tell her that learning to lose is just as important as winning and that there are things you learn from losing that you don't learn from always winning. Mine was never as hyper competitive as you describe yours but she did get a bit cocky. Having her skip a level and get knocked down to the edges of the podium and being excluded from the podium helped quite a bit.

A lot of kids excel at L3/L4 that go on to get their little butts kicked in the higher compulsories so her day may come. But then again, she just may be one of those lucky lucky kids who wins everything all the time. Only time will tell. But in the meantime, anything you can do to help her put herself in someone else's shoes will help.

We've worked on stressing empathy. And by nature, she's pretty empathetic...but she just gets so disappointed and gets upset. We've role played and discussed sportsmanship. I'm hoping it's just a maturity issue.


**I guess I just wanted to know that someone else out there had been through this. I used to teach (pre-K, K, and 1) until I "retired" when my oldest DD was born...so I have dug into my bag of tricks. And have continually dug into that bag. It's not okay to be a bad sport. It's never okay to be a sore loser or to pout/cry if you don't win/get a prize/etc. I've been teaching her that. And maybe it's slowly sinking in.

***As I was responding to these comments, I realized that it's not so much competitiveness (okay, so she does like to "win"), but she feels things SO strongly and when she's disappointed, it's crushing. We've been working on/trying to teach her how to handle those strong feelings in an appropriate way. Discussing, reading books, pointing out things in shows she watches (when the character handles something in an appropriate way), role playing, etc. Now...to hope she matures quickly.

 

[Natasha]

It sounds like you are already doing everything you can as a parent to help her with this. Sounds like it is just going to be one of those things where she is going to need time to gain the maturity which will come with life lessons when she begins to experience not always winning. And team should help with this too, as there will be others who are good and by nature of team vs. rec classes there will be much more focus on doing things with perfect form vs. quickly.

 

[gymmomtoo]

In reading your reply to the comments, I just want to say--keep doing what you're doing. It sounds like she's learning and maturing.

 

[HappyMom]

I do have to comment though because this struck me as very odd. I'd be concerned about any rec coaches or any coaches for that matter that are looking at a 6 year old doing cartwheels in a rec class and saying she could be an olympian. Even if they are the best cartwheels ever done in the history of the world. Coaches know there is a long road between cartwheels and the olympics. It's not something that coaches really walk around talking about at any reputable gym I've been in. Makes you think of one of those bad TV movies where the coach is trying to get the parent to commit to more gymnastics because they certainly have Olympic potential!

That struck me as odd too because the kid isn't even on team yet...and I agree , it was probably a marketing tool...

I assumed that was a joke. "If we could harness her energy, she could be an Olympian!" The same way I say, "If I could have DD's energy for just one day, I could get my entire 'to do' list done in one fell swoop!"

They had no clue I could over hear their conversation, so it wasn't directed at me. And it wasn't about her cartwheels - I think it was when she did a chin up pullover, stood on the low bar, jumped to the higher bar, did another chin up pullover, some other skills I don't know the names of, and then flipped off. Yes, it was something they were introducing in class, but they had just told the kids what they were going to do and my DD did it with minimal spotting (no help jumping, chin up pull over by herself, other skills by herself, and then flipped over, held the L position for 10 seconds, and dropped) after having just heard the oral directions. She was the first to go in her class, so she just listened to what they said and then did it.

But honestly, I may end up shopping for another gym with more professional coaches. They're in the process of rebuilding the gym and the team after the owners split. There is currently no team, except 1 child, so although they have a pre-team, there is no team. They're rebuilding. It is my neighborhood gym, close to my house, and when we signed up for rec classes, I didn't know the difference/wouldn't have cared if I did, b/c it was just to expose them since they both wanted to try. I like the gym, but sometimes feel as if DD could be receiving better coaching. For example, she couldn't get her cartwheel on the balance beam (relatively new skill at the time) and couldn't figure out what she was doing wrong, despite having practiced it in two or three classes with her coach. One day, she asked another coach if she could just do a few more cartwheels on the balance beam while we were waiting for DD#2 (who was in her class) b/c she felt so close to getting it. The coach watched her twice and then told her to push off quicker when she was coming back to a stand. She tried it the next time and nailed it. And has been getting it every time since. Her current coach will also be pre-team coach.

I'm not looking for her to be an Olympian. That comment just struck me as funny/odd too. Like Mary, I think it was meant as a joke, of sorts. I think they meant if they could keep her focused, then she'd do well. But it wasn't directed at me and I mentioned it to them.