Coaches Older Gymnasts fighting

[kalgymcoach]

Hi, I coach primarily at a low income/youth at risk Gymnastic Club and am having major issues with "*****y" behaviour with my Upper Level girls team. They seem to be ignoring or fighting with each other inside and outside the gym ie. facebook/skype. I have talked to parents of the girls, but now them seem to be doing it behind my back! I just want them to feel safe, enjoy the sport and learn new elements. Any help or advice any coach/es could give me it would appreciated. Thanks

 

[BlairBob]

Ehh, girls are gonna be girls.

At least guys generally just duke it out and are cool afterwards. Not a bad idea, really.

 

[iwannacoach]

Give them a one week "vacation" so they can do their little battle outside the gym. Sit them down when they return and tell them to find noble causes to fight for if they feel the need to assert themselves.

 

[shadow]

We have had this happen between 2 girls once. It got to the point where their parents wouldn't allow them to be friends anymore and eventually they got over it. Now its just the 8 and 9 year old's i have to separate!

 

[Gymsanity]

You work with 'youth at risk' kids too? Wow so do I, as every one of my girls are 'at risk' of me booting them with a size 13 shoe if they aren't nice! It is really up to the coach to set the standards for what is and isn't acceptable behavior. Your athletes need to know that you have a zero tolerance policy, and that includes all options, including removal. Quite often as coaches we end up teaching far more than gymnastics, and being kind to each other is at the top of the list. I know the natural tendency for most people is to separate kids that aren't getting along. I take the opposite approach and pair them together in a cooperative game/task/competition against other pairs of girls in which they need to pull for each other and work together. I usually make it something subjective (points for the best cartwheel, round off, etc.) so I can 'fudge' a little bit if necessary, to see that they do well together. In most cases, I've been able to take girls who might have had some 'friction' between them and turn them into close friends. The others? Long gone............

 

[kalgymcoach]

Thank you. We all got on really well until a couple of weeks ago! I will be sitting them down for a talk and letting them know this behaviour is unacceptable, and your right we do teach much more than Gymnastics! I was going to pair them up with other kids that don't know them. But maybe I will put a couple of them together (as there is 5 involved). Thanks again for your advise

 

[kalgymcoach]

Thanks after my talk with the girls then the parents and if it doesn't get better I will be sending one on "vacation".

 

[BlairBob]

I dunno, but if they were given each other guff (which generally means giving me guff and annoying me) I would get pretty charitable with the conditioning.

Front leaning rest position or burpees.

 

[Pineapple_Lump]

I thought Kalgoorlie generally had higher income families. Interesting place, I can see why you are having social issues.

 

[BlairBob]

Whenever I've had a bully amongst the younger boys, I generally pair said bully with a kid who can take care of them. I can remember when one scrawny kid actually took one bully to the mat crying because his dad had his son in wrestling (because he was scrawny and he was a wrestler).

It was pretty epic-ly awesome. The girl coaches didn't know what to do and that kid definitely learned his lesson (my friend's foster lil brother).

Maybe you should give the girls some of those big boxing gloves and some headgear. Settle your differences and get back to work!

 

[Kiwi]

In schools they have classes come up with their own 'class charter' of rules. Maybe you could get them to make a team charter. They could also come up with the consequences for breaches of the charter, e.g. time out or conditioning. i.e. unacceptable behaviour leads to undesirable consequences.