Coaches Kicking team athletes off the island

[estamey21]

I am curious what your gym does when a student on team is not a good fit for the program. Maybe they aren’t putting in the work, maybe they are disrupting the class, maybe they have poor attendance. Regardless of the reason for their unsatisfactory behavior, what is your gym’s disciplinary policy for problem students?

My gym will send DP students “down” to XCEL, which sometimes resolves the problem, but often it just degrades the quality of the XCEL program. Our XCEL program will only kick students out in extreme situations.

 

[That_Gymnast]

I am curious what your gym does when a student on team is not a good fit for the program. Maybe they aren’t putting in the work, maybe they are disrupting the class, maybe they have poor attendance. Regardless of the reason for their unsatisfactory behavior, what is your gym’s disciplinary policy for problem students?

My gym will send DP students “down” to XCEL, which sometimes resolves the problem, but often it just degrades the quality of the XCEL program. Our XCEL program will only kick students out in extreme situations.

My gym doesn’t knock them down, bad behavior = gone. Gymnastics takes discipline and focus, it’s okay to have fun and should be encouraged but by being distracting or missing to many practices it risks gymnasts safety. The xcel program should be a healthy environment, bringing the disrespect and attitudes seems unfair to the parents paying for their kids to enjoy gymnastics in Xcel.

 

[Coach Kate]

For all the reasons you listed, it would go something like this. Disclosure, we've been xcel only since summer 2020.

First, it's a conversation with the athlete about goals and a reminder of the contract they sign in the team handbook, which includes a piece about positive attitude, best effort, and attendance. If there's no change, we involve the parent and athlete together. If there's still no change, then at the end of season, we will say there is not a place for them on the team, but they can sign up for our junior high/high school class (assuming they're 11+) .

 

[Janneke]

Seems to be talk to the athlete, if that doesn't help talk to the parents and and if that doesn't help then out of the club all together. Not sure if they have ever gotten that far. The thing is challenging behaviour is usually caused by something. The athlete might not want to be there, there might be jealousy, it could be frustration of not being able to get a certain skill, finding out the root cause might solve the problem.

 

[estamey21]

Thanks for sharing! I think the root of the problem at my gym is not the bad athletes but, rather, a poorly enforced handbook. (We might not even have a handbook?)