Why do many parents keep track of every girl's scores at meets?

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my4buffaloes

Proud Parent
I have noticed that many other parents write down every single score from our team at meets. When one girl is finished they frantically look for the scores and if they can't see them or they missed them they start asking everyone around if anyone else saw the score. At the last meet, before I even had a chance to think about my dd's AA score I was told what it was by one of these moms. I understand one mom from a gym doing it, but it is easily half of them. What is the point? The coaches are given the scores.

I do try to watch scores all over the meet, not just our own team because it gives me a feel for how the judges are scoring, how the meet is going, how we stack up as a team compared to other teams, etc. But aside from seeing the scores flash for each child, I rarely remember any by the awards ceremony even. I feel I do pretty good to remember my own dd's, which I do write down because Lord knows I would forget.

Am I missing something here?
 
I usually write down the scores so I have an idea during awards where/if my daughter would place. It is also good for my nervous energy. I wouldnt go so far as telling another parent what there childs overall score was & I certainly wouldnt go out of my way to obtain a childs score. If I see it I would write it down but not call out for ones I didnt see. This must be commonplace by us because the programs have a list for names & places to write down scores. A few of the moms use "meet tracker" apps on their IPADS & track each childs whole season with graphs and all.
 
I keep track of all the girls on DD team ( keep in mind it is a very small team & currently only 4 on her level, most ever on a level was 6) All the parents @ our gym have done that since she startrd competing, I thought is was normal. It has also come in handy @ a couple meets computers crashed & coaches were asking parents for the scores so they could figure awards.

I also have an App for my phone & tablet that will track all season & can be emailed to HC so she doesnt have to think about it.
we did have a mom who tracked every single girl in the session, not just our gym. she has since moved on but I hear is still doing that.
 
Good question....I do personally know some moms do it so they can frantically add up AAs as they are going to see if where their child will fit (and of course since they care so much it is hopefully 1st place). Now first of all that is silly because every meet has a whole bunch of girls not from your gym, and I couldn't tell a 10 year old from a 12 year old most days in a leo, nor do I care!

Ok this is mean, but we have a mom who does this, and her daughter usually fares quite well at meets. Back in level 4, she was doing this, and you could see the mom's smug look because she felt assured that her daughter clinched first place. Well, the meet was unusually big and they ended up breaking up the brackets of the 8 year old girls into 2, so some (her daughter included) got mixed in with some girls who typically where not in her daughter's group. The look on this mom's face when they announced it was priceless - she had to scramble again to see where her daughter would fall, and unfortunately for her, one girl, who would usually be in an older group, got stuck with her daughter, and she realized very quickly her own daughter would not take first place.

I could not help but sit there and laugh (to myself of course!). NOthing against the kid, but parents like that just irk me.

I'm sure there are other reasons why people keep scores. One mom told me her daughter asks her to as she puts it in her scrap book. I guess I can see that. I could never pull it off, I have enough time getting my own kid scores and remembering them as I don't write her's down. She usually gets a card from her coach at the end of the meet.
I have noticed that many other parents write down every single score from our team at meets. When one girl is finished they frantically look for the scores and if they can't see them or they missed them they start asking everyone around if anyone else saw the score. At the last meet, before I even had a chance to think about my dd's AA score I was told what it was by one of these moms. I understand one mom from a gym doing it, but it is easily half of them. What is the point? The coaches are given the scores.

I do try to watch scores all over the meet, not just our own team because it gives me a feel for how the judges are scoring, how the meet is going, how we stack up as a team compared to other teams, etc. But aside from seeing the scores flash for each child, I rarely remember any by the awards ceremony even. I feel I do pretty good to remember my own dd's, which I do write down because Lord knows I would forget.

Am I missing something here?
 
For our team, there is one parent who is recording all the scores to send them to our website person so she can put the scores up on the gym's website.

I think some parents just do it to keep busy.

I only record dd's scores, but will admit that I followed all girls in her Regional group to see if she would finish top 6. It was exhausting and so stressful. I did know where she stood, but boy what an ordeal that was for me! I prefer to just follow her scores... ;)
 
For our team, there is one parent who is recording all the scores to send them to our website person so she can put the scores up on the gym's website.

That was me, for our team.

I know other parents were doing it just as a 'keepsake' in their DD's scorebook (where it's one page per meet so silly to have only 1 child's score). Others do it to try to determine team score for awards. I know one mom who used to keep track of EVERY GIRL in her DD's age group in the entire meet - crazy!
 
My aunt tracked all the girls scores when her daughter was competing and I thought she was nuts but she said it gave her something to do so she wouldn't stress about the next event, etc. I didn't do it for my DD's first meet but I did track her team's scores for the others. It was somewhat calming and made the time between events pass much more quickly. I did wind up putting the pages in her scrapbook along with the score cards the meet gives them and her "Great Job" cards from her coaches and it turned out pretty cute...
 
I will admit to doing it but I don't go out of my way. I have a score book (scrapbook) that I use so that she has a record of everything from year to year! The cover usually looks like her comp leotard. I will post a couple of pictures. Unfortunately, I never get all of the scores so there are empty spots in her books. What is interesting is seeing all the different names each season. While some girls are still there, lots have come and gone. I try to do a mini scrapbook page for each meet also. I am a huge scrapbooker!! (even though my photography skill are quite lacking!).
 

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So funny...we just had a meet last weekend and I was wondering the same thing. :)

I personally do not play up scores with dd. She does her very best each and every meet and it is what it is. Once the meet is over, to me, who cares what the scores were. Certainly mistakes and corrections need to be noted by the coach to be worked on in practice. I only write down my own dd's scores for us. I keep all of the meet sheets for a keepsake in case she ever wants to look back on her gymnastics years. I do not track other girls' scores as I don't want dd to think that it matters and to be overly concerned with her teammates' scores in comparison to her own. There is a lot of time dedicated to awards at meets so certainly the girls are aware of who scored/placed well. Does not need to be further compared and discussed. I do, however, try and watch the routines and scores of all the girls at her level since I've know them so long and have a special place in my heart for each and every of them. Would want to congratulate a personal best or other accomplishment.

We also have a mom who makes a scene trying to see each score of our team and record it. We have a mom who writes down every score of every girl at her dd's level. How she can figure out who is who and ages is beyond me. And we don't even have flashers. I can see how keeping scores of many girls would keep you busy and help pass the time. Our meets are long. :)
 
That does make sense as a way to keep busy. I know one of the moms I was thinking of gets very nervous, so maybe that is why? I just prefer to watch the meet. I don't usually get nervous for my dd I just like watching gymnastics and there is always so much to watch, who has time to keep track of scores?

I do wonder how parents figure out who their child is actuallly competing against because I don't know the girls from the other teams and you can't tell by looking how old they are. And like one person said - you never know how they are going to break down the awards in the end. I never try to figure out where my dd will place although I can usually guess that a score was either good enough for a placement or not - but even then I am frequently wrong. Last fall I just knew my dd wouldn't place at states because her scores were so low compared to the other teams I saw. Imagine my shock when she took first on floor! Yeah I don't have a picture of that. Not a good mom moment but it just proves that you really can't tell how it will shake out until the awards.
 
I was that gymnast who asked her parents to write down all of the scores for all the girls in my session. :eek: My parents didn't always catch all of them, but they tried to get what they could. I kept all of my meet programs as keepsakes and I guess it was just more interesting looking back on them if they had a bunch of numbers in there rather than just mine? I don't know, the preteen mind works in mysterious ways!
 
wanted to add that I hadn't thought to make a memory book or scrapbook for dd. I never save anything from the meets! Again, bad mom moment I guess. Must do better! This is a huge part of her life and she might like to look back on it someday and remember who was on her team, specific meets, etc.
 
My mom would keep track of scores because she said it gave her something to do. If her and her friend miss one they don't really care. No adding up or anything to find AA of mine or anybodies. When I first started competing she had problems just keeping track of mine, but with 7 years of me competing she has mastered that.
When I am competing though she does just sit and watch not look at all the scores.
It works great for her and me. I think here the meets are generally smaller so everybody pretty much knows everyone who they are competing against, the age divisions are all the same too. I can see how all my friends did from different gyms as well as myself.
 
In the past I have only kept tack of my DD's scores. She was at a very low-hours gym, so "winning" didn't happen very often, but she did generally show improvement in her scores from meet to meet, so it was a nice way to talk with her about her progress with out talking about placement. However, I just got a new iPad and I did get the meet tracker app for my new toy. Since it seemed silly to only put my daughter's name in it, I did put in the whole team (there are 6 of them in level 6) and I tried to keep track of their scores. However, I ended up having to look up half the scores on line anyway because I couldn't keep up (I was also trying to video tape my DD and her best friend). None of the other girls on her team are in her age group, so she doesn't directly compete against any of them. I suppose it's mostly just an exercise that I may tire of when my iPad is less new and exciting. I've only done it the one time, and to be honest, it was kind of a pain in the butt.
 
My DD also has a scorebook and asks me to keep up with her teammates scores so she can record them after. It's been easier since I got an app to do it-she just takes my ipad and writes them down in her book. I can't even imagine keeping up with everyone in a session. :eek: In most of DD's meets, there have been at least 70-80 girls. No way would I even attempt to record all those. When would you actually watch the gymnastics?!
 
I will admit to doing it but I don't go out of my way. I have a score book (scrapbook) that I use so that she has a record of everything from year to year! The cover usually looks like her comp leotard. I will post a couple of pictures. Unfortunately, I never get all of the scores so there are empty spots in her books. What is interesting is seeing all the different names each season. While some girls are still there, lots have come and gone. I try to do a mini scrapbook page for each meet also. I am a huge scrapbooker!! (even though my photography skill are quite lacking!).

Those are really cool scrapbooks and I LOVE the idea of having the cover look like the leotard!!
 
That is kind of cool, and if I could ever pull something like that off, I could see the value in keeping scores!
I will admit to doing it but I don't go out of my way. I have a score book (scrapbook) that I use so that she has a record of everything from year to year! The cover usually looks like her comp leotard. I will post a couple of pictures. Unfortunately, I never get all of the scores so there are empty spots in her books. What is interesting is seeing all the different names each season. While some girls are still there, lots have come and gone. I try to do a mini scrapbook page for each meet also. I am a huge scrapbooker!! (even though my photography skill are quite lacking!).
 

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