Parents Sacrificing other activities

[LindyHopper]

My daugher loves rock climbing too! She has been doing it for about 3 years, just for fun. I bet she would take it up more seriously if she ever quit gym.

Little Bit's coach is always teasingly asking Short Stack if she's ready to quit gym and join the team. Climbing is an Olympic sport in 2020. And heaven knows there's more longevity in climbing.

 

[MuggleMom]

What I am doing to try and expose my daughter to other things without overloading her is summer camps. We did a golf camp last year will probably do a surf camp this year. It exposes her to other sports, is short term, and is easier to work into a gymnastics schedule. She had a lot going on last year and I could see her burning out. She is much happier doing pretty much just gymnastics but like everyone else said, if she quits we will figure something else out and gym is a great builder of general athleticism which means you can be a "late" starter to another sport and still excel.

And many other activities wont get the gym hours or why you do it but its not your problem to make them ok with your life choices. And if some lady posts a snobby facebook post about it shes got bigger problems. If I were in that troop that would rub me the wrong way. That's a sure fire way to ensure that if my daughter goes back to brownies it wont be with that troop.

 

[mommyof1]

Not to mention I have a new baby at home and I work and commute. Its a lot on me as well.

This is an important factor that often gets overlooked--how much can the parents and the rest of the family handle? I have done some crazy things to accommodate not just gymnastics but also academic enrichment, day camps, and a dearth of decent after-school care options in our area. What I have learned over the years is that I hit schedule overload much more quickly than my daughter does. Since we started saying "no" to school-based extracurricular activities and gave up on the idea that summer day camp would be anything more than a reasonably safe place to park the kid after morning gymnastics practice, I've been less stressed because I am not always missing a ton of work, I spend half as much time in the car during the summer, and the entire family has been a lot more relaxed.

 

[MILgymFAM]

We come from a different place than most people here, both because my DDs started so old and because we homeschool. My ODD had plenty of time to try other things (soccer, swimming, track) and fall in love with other things (ballet, circus arts) before she threw herself into gym. When she had to quit gym (it ended up being temporary but we didn’t know that at the time), she found new things to love quite easily, and still had the things she’d loved all along. My younger DD had to quit T&T and if she didn’t have dance to fall back on it would have been pretty devastating for her. Because we homeschool, our girls have the time to do other things regardless (money is another issue- seems something has to be in short supply), so they try things as they want to. My ODD now does swing dancing and my YDD gave swim team a go. They’re both fiddling around with pole fitness at the moment as well.

I do think that it’s important that they know they are more than gymnastics.. but time and money being finite, it’s ok if they only do gymnastics. A free hobby at home (dancing, drawing, writing), a few good non-gym friends, even a love of school can all be the back burner of their time in gym.

 

[LindyHopper]

My ODD now does swing dancing

Been swing dancing for over 20 years. I LOVE it.

 

[MILgymFAM]

Been swing dancing for over 20 years. I LOVE it.

She loves it too! Her teacher called her the “most naturally talented he’s worked with in over twenty years”.. when your kid needs recommendations, you can take a nice bump in the feels!

 

[rosiekat]

She made school swim team with almost no swim experience

Bahaha, this made me laugh. My DD was on a neighborhood swim team this summer; DS (the gymnast) tried it a time or two, but didn't like that it took away from gym time. Fast forward to a meet where they needed an extra kid to make up a team for something, and since DS was technically on the roster, they grabbed him. He placed 1st in freestyle, 2nd in breaststroke, and 1st in butterfly. The really funny thing is not only had he not been practicing, he had barely learned breaststroke and had never swum butterfly - they taught him the stroke while he was waiting to race it!

Back to the original post - DS swears gym is his passion and for now, it definitely holds true. I try to find other opportunities for him to try that are low commitment - he does lots of summer camps, for example, learning and doing different things. So far, nothing has had anywhere close to the appeal of gym. We only restrict his activities during meet season (for boys here, that's January through end of March/early April at his age). I remind him that even if he does (unlikely) go to the Olympics, and becomes a world-class coach or something, there will come a time that he can't do gymnastics - and then he needs to be able to answer the question of what else is there to him other than being a gymnast?