WAG Accused of favoritism

DON'T LURK... Join The Discussion!

Members see FEWER ads

gymisforeveryone

Coach
Judge
I coach a group of teenagers (13-17 years old, equivalent to levels 7-10 in the US), and now some of the girls are telling me I play favorites. They seem to be very upset and keep talking, gossiping and whispering. The two girls who are my "favorites" are on the younger side and have only been in this group for 6 months or so. One of them is very hard working and talented and moving up quickly, the other one is just ordinary gymnast, not super talented but a kind kid who is always cheering on the others, extrovert and likes to joke around and is very open to chat with me about school and anything really.
The two girls who the older girls blame to be my favorites have been under my coaching for a long time, ever since pre-team. I know them very well and I have to admit that I have a special bond with them, but I just think it would be weird if I hadn't, since I've been their coach for so long. The other girls in the group have all been under my coaching for 2-3 years now, but they were already optionals when I started with them.

So my question is, what should I do? I don't think I'm playing favorites, but I understand that the girls can still feel that way. I think I give attention to everyone, but for example this one talented and hardworking kid is always on the go, taking more turns than the others, she doesn't like to sit and chat too much. She gets more done and of course I correct here a lot, because she's doing so much. She's learning new skills almost every week (skills that the older girls have been working for a long time) and I can see that the others might just be a bit jealous. But I understand that it would be like throwing gasoline to fire if I said this to them. So I think I need to think of a different approach.

I hate it that this situation is clearly starting to affect the two "favorites". The others don't really cheer on them that much anymore, and they don't invite them to sleepover and stuff. These two girls have been less happy and cheerful at practice lately.

What should I do?
 
I would start by ensuring that everyone takes the same number of turns. My daughter is not terribly assertive in the gym or at school. She will let other kids cut in front of her in line at the gym or push her out of the way during science lab, then come home and complain that she didn’t get to do as much as the other kids. She also feels injustice quite keenly, and several years later still resents the way one former coach played favorites.

In your situation, I’d try to keep the kids in a consistent order or keep track of how many turns each has taken. If your eager student tries to go again before everyone else has had a turn, tell her to wait until the others have gone. Then call the next girl by name and give her your full attention. This will clearly demonstrate to all of the girls that you are giving equal attention to each one.

It will also help if you make all of your requirements clear and apply them consistently, and if you don’t secretly offer special opportunities to some gymnasts. For example, if you can only take part of the team to a certain meet, don’t conceal the meet from the gymnasts who aren’t selected. Instead, announce the meet and the squad selections to the whole team.
 
I would start by ensuring that everyone takes the same number of turns. My daughter is not terribly assertive in the gym or at school. She will let other kids cut in front of her in line at the gym or push her out of the way during science lab, then come home and complain that she didn’t get to do as much as the other kids. She also feels injustice quite keenly, and several years later still resents the way one former coach played favorites.

In your situation, I’d try to keep the kids in a consistent order or keep track of how many turns each has taken. If your eager student tries to go again before everyone else has had a turn, tell her to wait until the others have gone. Then call the next girl by name and give her your full attention. This will clearly demonstrate to all of the girls that you are giving equal attention to each one.

It will also help if you make all of your requirements clear and apply them consistently, and if you don’t secretly offer special opportunities to some gymnasts. For example, if you can only take part of the team to a certain meet, don’t conceal the meet from the gymnasts who aren’t selected. Instead, announce the meet and the squad selections to the whole team.

I can see that this can be a problem with younger girls, since I also coach pre-team and compulsories who are younger, but with optionals I think it's different. The other girls don't like to take that many turns, because they enjoy chit chatting by the chalk bucket, resting between their turns on floor etc. Often times these two girls put their grips on in 5 seconds while the others seem to take forever to even get started. So they might be able to take 2-4 turns on bars even before the others have gotten ready! I don't think it would be fair to make these girls sit out until the slower girls have gotten their grips on etc. I have sometimes said, in frustration, something along the lines "now hurry up, we are 10 minutes into bar rotation and X and Z have already taken 3 turns and some of you haven't even started!" or "the bars are empty and you are all around the chalk bucket, except X who has taken 3 turns while you have been chalking". I think these gymnasts X and Z are younger and don't really need that long time to recover after a turn, but partly it's a social problem too. The ones who take less turns do more talking and socializing.
 
i would just state this toward the older kids. most will probably understand your perspective. ask them what they want you to do differently - do they want to take as many turns as the younger ones? do they want to chat about school with you? do they...?
 
i would just state this toward the older kids. most will probably understand your perspective. ask them what they want you to do differently - do they want to take as many turns as the younger ones? do they want to chat about school with you? do they...?

I could try this. I didn't really say anything today when the oldest girl in the group told me what they "all" think. She was upset and crying about something else that had happened, pretty much unrelated to this issue. I didn't want to defend myself when she made these accusations, because I saw no point in getting into argument with her about that when she was clearly upset about something else in the first place.
I'm going to have a talk with her tomorrow. She actually texted me after practice asking for a chance to talk when she's gotten time to calm down. I think it was a mature thing to do.
 
Instead of turns you can give them a time limit and have a visible stop watch. Each girl gets 10 minutes of your time per rotation, if they want to spend 5 minutes, chalking up or chatting then that's how they spend their time.

What you want to come across is the perception of being fair, everyone is biased and sometimes someone just needs a few more minutes, but if your are making and effort to be fair the older girls should be able to see that and accept that you are trying.

With the sleep overs and behavior towards the younger kids, that may not have anything to do with you, it might just be simply older girls wanting to spend time with older girls.
 
If you are asking the others to hurry, I think it would be helpful for you to leave the two younger ones out of it, regardless of how many turns they've had. When you continue to say they have done X number of turns and the others haven't even made it over, it can come across as being constantly compared to the "little superstar favorites." While that doesn't appear to be how you feel, it does give the impression that the other two are harder working, and "favorites." Remember, often teenagers are feeling insecure and even little things can make them feel like they are being judged.
 
You yourself clearly posted you have favorite. Look at that. Deal with that.
 
If you are asking the others to hurry, I think it would be helpful for you to leave the two younger ones out of it, regardless of how many turns they've had. When you continue to say they have done X number of turns and the others haven't even made it over, it can come across as being constantly compared to the "little superstar favorites." While that doesn't appear to be how you feel, it does give the impression that the other two are harder working, and "favorites." Remember, often teenagers are feeling insecure and even little things can make them feel like they are being judged.

Yeah that's what I usually do. And I have to point out that these two girls that the oldest girl named as my favorites are NOT best or the most talented in the group. They are the lowest level. One of them is talented, but also hard working. The other one is just hard working. I've just sometimes been frustrated, because I see the potential in everyone but some of them just don't seem to want to put in 100% effort and take everything out of the practice time they are given. Everyone is given the same amount of practice time, spotting etc. Then they wonder why X or Z is getting skills "faster" when actually that's not even true. They get so many more repetitions in that it takes them a week to get X number of let's say bling turns done while for some of the others it might take 3 weeks.

I don't usually do this comparing thing. I've said it handful of times when frustrated. I praise the hard work a lot though.
 
Instead of turns you can give them a time limit and have a visible stop watch. Each girl gets 10 minutes of your time per rotation, if they want to spend 5 minutes, chalking up or chatting then that's how they spend their time.

What you want to come across is the perception of being fair, everyone is biased and sometimes someone just needs a few more minutes, but if your are making and effort to be fair the older girls should be able to see that and accept that you are trying.

With the sleep overs and behavior towards the younger kids, that may not have anything to do with you, it might just be simply older girls wanting to spend time with older girls.

I don't see how that would work in practice. How would I time them?
 
You yourself clearly posted you have favorite. Look at that. Deal with that.

No I didn't. The oldest girl named these 2 girls as my favorite. Sorry if the post was confusing. English is not my first language so I might not have made myself clear.

I love all the girls. I tell them their strengths and praise them regularly. Just a few months ago I took my time to write everyone a personalized note about all the good things in them. I made sure to write just as much about everyone.

I also spend a lot of "special" time with some of the other girls in the groups at camps, competitions and clinics. Sometimes even 1 on 1. These two younger ones (well they are not the youngest in the group, but newest in the group) never get that kind of attention, because they don't attend these camps or competitions yet.
 
this is not your "fault". this is just typical teenage behavior and it also shows that the older ones trust you and like you because they dared to talk openly about this to you. and they texted afterwards, this is imo very good, too. talk about it, end on a positive note, make them understand that you like them and want them to suceed but that means they have to do their part for their success in the first place.
 
The more details you give, the more it sounds as if you are doing all the right things. I think your decision not to “defend” yourself when the one older girl told you what “everyone“ thinks was spot on. This is more about the girls than it is about you.

When you have your one-on-one chat with this gymnast, I’d keep it open-ended, listen as much as possible, and ask follow-up questions to encourage her to express her feelings and get to the real issue. Keep in mind that you are the trusted adult here, and don’t let yourself get sucked into confrontation. For example, if the gymnast complains that X and Z get more turns than she does, you can point out that you actually agree with this. “Yes, I have noticed this, and it frustrates me too. I think part of the problem is that some of the group is socializing at the chalk bucket when we should all be working.“ Then you can ask her help in brainstorming a solution, or tell her what steps you plan to take to deal with the problem. And be prepared for this kid’s real issue to be something completely unrelated to X and Z or even to gymnastics.

The book “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and How to Listen So Kids Will Talk” has some great strategies for communicating with kids and helping them deal with their emotions. It’s geared towards younger kids, but much of the material is applicable to teens and adults. In fact, I first encountered the book as required reading for a course about managing adult employees.
 
A little update: we had a talk with her and she was actually pretty easy to talk to now when she wasn't emotional and crying. She told me all the things that were bothering her. Mostly it was about not getting enough attention or enough push from me, and frustration about her situation (she's been having some health issues and mental blocks). She also said she sometimes feels forgotten, since she does some different skills to all the others and sometimes I forget to set side stations for her. I apologized and admitted that this has sometimes happened in the hectic practice, when I have just barely time to think about the bigger picture. I asked her to come and ask me if she doesn't know what side stations to do. She's 17 so she should be able to do that. I think she knows that she can, but the situation just hurt her feelings and maybe she didn't come to ask because she wanted to highlight the fact that she was forgotten. I understand her point but I also think that this could have happened with any of the girls, if all the others were doing yurchenkos and only one gymnast was training front handsprings. It wasn't personal.

Then we went back to the favoritism thing and now she was more specific in her accusations. She said that especially X (the talented one) gets more feedback that is more detailed. I can see why she feels that way, since as I told you X is getting so many more turns that I have time to focus on just her, when the others are still getting ready. I tried to kindly explain this to her without blaming anyone. I also told her that in the past, I have heard that many of the older girls have been my favorites too - from parents or some gymnasts who have already quit. She was quite surprised to hear that.

I also apologized for making her feel bad and promised to try to do better in the future. I think it doesn't hurt that I consider my feedback more carefully.

What did I learn here? Always wait until the teenage gymnast is calmed down before having touchy conversations!
 

New Posts

DON'T LURK... Join The Discussion!

Members see FEWER ads

Gymnaverse :: Recent Activity

College Gym News

New Posts

Back