Coaches did not let dd compete at Gymnix

[Canadian_gym_mom]

I am putting this here because I didn't want it up in any of the main threads. I am meeting with the coaches this afternoon to hear their take on the matter, but here is the basic scenario:

DD went to warm up at Gymnix. They do the whole warm up in a different gym, then go out and compete in the competition gym without touching the equipment. So dd is down in the basement warming up. With 15 minutes left the coaches come iup to the stands to get me and tell me that my dd had refused to warm up.

That she refused to do beam, refused to jump to the high bar and she was rude to them on floor.

At this point I said well tell her if she doesn't warm up you are pulling her, and I went up to the stands again. Well they had already made their decision but hadn't told her. I went down and she just found out she was pulled from the whole meet. For "SAFETY" reasons. I asked the coaches why they hadn't come to me 1/2 hour before but they had no answer.

I was so mad at them and dd that I literally carried her out of the gym kicking and screaming and crying and got in the car and drove the 6 hours home.

BUT

On the way, her version of the story was much different. She said she warmed up her floor and vault completely. She said she was pouting on floor because they changed her routine right then and pulled her big tumbling line, making it very basic. So she was upset but did everything they asked her.

She said she warmed up vault completely and even bumped and stuck her landings.

She said that on beam, she did 4 or 5 routines fully thrugh on one beam, but then it was her turn on another beam that was really slippery, she was scared and wouldn't go. But then she went back to the other beam and did everything.

Same with bars. She did all her routines on one bar, but then was asked to do it on a really chalky slippery bar (she doesn't yet wers grips) and she was too scared. But again, she went back to the first bar and did everything.

I have posted before about dd being stubborn, and I am now wondering if this was her coaches trying to prove a point to her that she has to do absolutely everything no matter what. A pretty harsh thing to do to an 8 year old at her first competition in my opinion.

I am meeting with the team of coaches this afternoon with dd, because it is either they lied about her warm up or she is lying.

We will see how the meeting goes. Leaving the gym isn't really an option, it's either stay or dd leaves gymnastics all together. I am just so upset about this, dd is still randomly crying because she still doesn't understand why she didn't get to compete.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

oh boy. i hate that scenario..."either they lied about her warm up or she is lying". and 8 is young to have these kinds of problems already. on 1 hand, the athlete must comply with the coach from beginning to end. and it is for their safety. but she's 8. what was she doing that could be unsafe. and the equipment is what it is. and what if the same scenario took place on the competitive equipment? to slippery, etc; you still gotta warm up and go.

i'm not sure stubborn is the right word. some kids are just overtly neurotic. everything has to be just so or they won't go. it's a rock and a hard place for both the coach and athlete.

come back later so we can hear what the coaches have to say. and by the way, how old are these coaches?

 

[bogwoppit]

Oh UGH!!! That is just not fun, no matter what happened. As the parent os a very stubborn child I can tell you I have had some doozies like that. Chances are there is truth on both sides and both sides "truth" is coloured by the perspective.

I suppose you can only ask them to tell you the "whole" story and then you can tell them your DD's experience and see where it takes you.

My kids was lucky to have a coach who tolerated most of her stubbornness, I fear she wouldn't have been on team in other gyms. If it seems the coaches were in the wrong, then it seems you have few choices.

I can totally understand how upset you are, it was a big trip, a huge first meet and lots of expectations and planning went into making it special. Now it is tainted.

 

[bogwoppit]

and by the way, how old are these coaches?

These are very experienced coaches Dunno. The OP's DD is about a L7 by Canadian standards and is in a national stream program.

 

[Ingwe]

UGH! I am sorry that it all played out that way. So disappointing on all levels. I hope that your meeting with the coaches goes well and you are all able to come to a good place when it comes to your daughter's training.

I would like to add that I too have what Dunno referred to as a Neurotic kid. She is VERY particular about how things feel, look and even where her coach stands during vault. If they are one step to the right or left of where she wants them to stand she will not flip her vault. It's nutty! LOL!

I can say that with some maturity (she just turned 13) she has learned to deal with some of these things during competition. 2 years ago a weird feeling beam and bars would have just ruined her day. She at least now sucks it up and then just complains the whole car ride home.

I will admit that I still cringe at every meet she goes to where she has to warm up on one set of equipment and compete on another. I just never know how she will react if things aren't just right.

Good Luck to you today!!

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

oh boy. i hate that scenario..."either they lied about her warm up or she is lying". and 8 is young to have these kinds of problems already. on 1 hand, the athlete must comply with the coach from beginning to end. and it is for their safety. but she's 8. what was she doing that could be unsafe. and the equipment is what it is. and what if the same scenario took place on the competitive equipment? to slippery, etc; you still gotta warm up and go.

i'm not sure stubborn is the right word. some kids are just overtly neurotic. everything has to be just so or they won't go. it's a rock and a hard place for both the coach and athlete.

come back later so we can hear what the coaches have to say. and by the way, how old are these coaches?

Trust me dunno, I hate this too. But it's the truth. Someone isn't telling me what really happened down there. And I agree with the how unsafe could it be. She does a kip cast handstand, back hip circle, squat on, jump to high bar, kip cast handstand, step down, pike off. And on beam she does 2 back walkovers and then also a back handspring.

And the people involved are the owner (40s), head coach (mid 30s) and her own coach (mid 20s).

I will update later.

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

These are very experienced coaches Dunno. The OP's DD is about a L7 by Canadian standards and is in a national stream program.

Well not quite national stream yet, she didn't have her giants on time this year. But for next year there was talk of skipping Aspire and trying Elite right away. It's only bars holding her back right now. Time will tell and who knows?

 

[Deleted member D3987]

some coaches are just no good with 8 year olds. and some no good with teenagers. myself? 'm no good with adults that want to come to gymnastics for the 1st time when they are adults. get back to us later. i'm sincerely interested in their response.

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

some coaches are just no good with 8 year olds. and some no good with teenagers. myself? 'm no good with adults that want to come to gymnastics for the 1st time when they are adults. get back to us later. i'm sincerely interested in their response.

So you won't teach me a yurchenko? Thanks, I will update.

 

[MaryA]

some coaches are just no good with 8 year olds. and some no good with teenagers. myself? 'm no good with adults that want to come to gymnastics for the 1st time when they are adults. get back to us later. i'm sincerely interested in their response.

From previous posts (the one about trying on the leos, etc.), it does sort of seem like these coaches just don't know much about 8-year-olds. Very frustrating! I'm not sure what I would do if I drove 6 hours to watch my daughter compete and she wasn't allowed to do so, but it wouldn't be pretty.

 

[Quadqueen]

this is horrible. I hope you get some answers from them.

 

[gymdog]

Hmm...that's a tough situation. On the other hand I can see that they might consider refusing to use one bar or beam "not warming up" unless they specified that she did not do any at all and were very specific about it. Some coaches would consider refusing to use some of the warm up equipment as "not warming up." Is the language they were communicating with you their first language? If there is a language barrier and they were stressed in the conversation, perhaps there was miscommunication stemming from that.

You recommended they pull her if she wasn't warming up, so some part of you thought that would be a learning approach for her (I understand that you thought the situation was different). Is there another way you would have wanted them to handle it? I think it would be better for you to tell them for future situations...for example, would you like to talk with her first? But once the warm up is over, it is over...if the child is refusing to do some things on some of the equipment available, then what if they get to the competition and encounter the same things? This is not uncommon at all, but the kids have to learn how to deal with it, particularly if they want to compete at a high level. If equipment is really unsafe then no good/experienced coach will let the child on it. Maybe you can assure her that the coaches are checking the equipment and she can at least try on it. They can tell her that they understand her first turn might not be her best, but it needs to be a reasonable approximation of the warm up routine.

Also, if you really carried her out kicking and screaming, then I think she needs to have a plan of what behavior is tolerated at meets. That isn't to say she is the first one to do it - I work with mostly kids her age and trust me, I have seen it all. And worse. But whenever it happens I quickly talk over a behavior plan for the child telling them the acceptable choices to express their emotions. I would work with her on giving her the words to be able to communicate with the coaches. And also with you. When things like this happen I think it is best to be as neutral as possible. I know that is easier said than done...but otherwise can distract from the learning process and divert the child's feelings to something else (they are mad at me, etc). It is better to just say "Okay, I guess you are not ready to compete today. We have other meets later and we'll try again next time." Personally at this age I would (and have) most likely made the child stay at the event as the coach whether they competed or not unless they were somehow inconsolable. If they warmed up vault, they would compete vault. I think scratching the events would have made a big enough impact on an 8 year old and then she would have supported the other competitors and learned some things are not the end of the world (i.e. the meet went on, other kids were warming up and competing, etc).

 

[DND]

oh boy. i hate that scenario..."either they lied about her warm up or she is lying". and 8 is young to have these kinds of problems already. on 1 hand, the athlete must comply with the coach from beginning to end. and it is for their safety. but she's 8. what was she doing that could be unsafe. and the equipment is what it is. and what if the same scenario took place on the competitive equipment? to slippery, etc; you still gotta warm up and go.

i'm not sure stubborn is the right word. some kids are just overtly neurotic. everything has to be just so or they won't go. it's a rock and a hard place for both the coach and athlete.

come back later so we can hear what the coaches have to say. and by the way, how old are these coaches?

Are you not allowed to "sand down" or remove excess chalk off the equipment before your gymnasts talkes their turn if it is too chalky? I am not sure if that is the corrct term, but I have seem my DD use what looks like sandpaper over the bar as she is 8yo too and does not use grips and with her small hands finds it better for her.

 

[bogwoppit]

Are you not allowed to "sand down" or remove excess chalk off the equipment before your gymnasts talkes their turn if it is too chalky? I am not sure if that is the corrct term, but I have seem my DD use what looks like sandpaper over the bar as she is 8yo too and does not use grips and with her small hands finds it better for her.

Certainly here you are allowed to rub the chalk off the bar. Our coach does it all the time for our none grip wearers. But some Gymnova bars are very slippy, we have a set in the gym that my youngest hated practicing on as it was so slippy, and she wears grips.

We also always use the warm up in one gym and compete in the other system here. At Gymnix the warm up gym is a permanent gym, so well used equipment, the meet equipment is brought in in trucks and is newer stuff. Gymnix is also a huge meet and is on a podium for some girls, it is a pretty huge experience as far as meets go.

For a first meet all this could be very overwhelming to a child who is highly sensitive.

 

[DND]

Thanks for the clarification as I was not sure if there was a rule in place to pevent this during a meet. I notice that some girls use alot of chalk on the beam as well and others prefer it clean in our gym.

I am sure Gymnix would be intimidating as a first meet as my DD was registered to compete, but between late year confidence issues and now just returning after a bad bout of servers (off impact from mid December to mid February) we will have to wait til next year.

It is interesting to learn that what you see day to day in the gym ma or may not be allowed in meets.

Thanks

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

Hmm...that's a tough situation. On the other hand I can see that they might consider refusing to use one bar or beam "not warming up" unless they specified that she did not do any at all and were very specific about it. Some coaches would consider refusing to use some of the warm up equipment as "not warming up." Is the language they were communicating with you their first language? If there is a language barrier and they were stressed in the conversation, perhaps there was miscommunication stemming from that.

You recommended they pull her if she wasn't warming up, so some part of you thought that would be a learning approach for her (I understand that you thought the situation was different). Is there another way you would have wanted them to handle it? I think it would be better for you to tell them for future situations...for example, would you like to talk with her first? But once the warm up is over, it is over...if the child is refusing to do some things on some of the equipment available, then what if they get to the competition and encounter the same things? This is not uncommon at all, but the kids have to learn how to deal with it, particularly if they want to compete at a high level. If equipment is really unsafe then no good/experienced coach will let the child on it. Maybe you can assure her that the coaches are checking the equipment and she can at least try on it. They can tell her that they understand her first turn might not be her best, but it needs to be a reasonable approximation of the warm up routine.

Also, if you really carried her out kicking and screaming, then I think she needs to have a plan of what behavior is tolerated at meets. That isn't to say she is the first one to do it - I work with mostly kids her age and trust me, I have seen it all. And worse. But whenever it happens I quickly talk over a behavior plan for the child telling them the acceptable choices to express their emotions. I would work with her on giving her the words to be able to communicate with the coaches. And also with you. When things like this happen I think it is best to be as neutral as possible. I know that is easier said than done...but otherwise can distract from the learning process and divert the child's feelings to something else (they are mad at me, etc). It is better to just say "Okay, I guess you are not ready to compete today. We have other meets later and we'll try again next time." Personally at this age I would (and have) most likely made the child stay at the event as the coach whether they competed or not unless they were somehow inconsolable. If they warmed up vault, they would compete vault. I think scratching the events would have made a big enough impact on an 8 year old and then she would have supported the other competitors and learned some things are not the end of the world (i.e. the meet went on, other kids were warming up and competing, etc).

Apparently the warm up is 1/2 hour general warm up and stretch, then 15 minutes on each event one after the other. She told me that her order was Beam, Floor, Vault, Bars. Beam was one of the concerns. She was done that first. If the decision was made at that point to have her not compete beam, why wouldn't they have told her, then come tell us? There were 3 coaches there and my dd was the only one competing in this group.

She then (according to dd) warmed up floor then vault and did everything, the one thing she told me is that she was mad that they pulled her front tuck but she still went out and did her tumbling and all her other stuff.

My issue is that they knew 15 minutes in that her beam wasn't warmed up enough in their eyes. They should have told her at least, and reminded her that if she didn't warm up to their expectations, they would not let her compete the other events. I think this would have been reasonable.

To answer your other questions:

No, there is no language barrier.

If there was an issue with the competition equipment, then so be it, at least she would have been given the opportunity to try, you know? And the equipment wasn't unsafe, it was just different from what she's used to.

She didn't even know a thing about not competing until she was brought upstairs from the training gym. And she was devastated because she truly didn't think she had done anything wrong. We were an hour outside Montreal and she was still crying for us to take her back and let her compete. Begging. We told her it wasn't our decision, it was the coachs', but she was completely devastated and heartbroken, inconsolable.

Thanks for your insight. As a mom it's hard to be objective and see all sides of things. We will see in a couple of hours what the outcome will be.

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

I am sure Gymnix would be intimidating as a first meet

It is interesting to learn that what you see day to day in the gym ma or may not be allowed in meets.

Thanks

Yes on both! And it's interesting that even the kids don't know or understand the expectations either.

 

[MaryA]

Yes on both! And it's interesting that even the kids don't know or understand the expectations either.

Yet another reason to suspect that these coaches just don't "get" 8-year-olds, or understand how to work with them. I understand that your daughter is very talented and these coaches have the capability to take her as far as she may want to go in the sport, but they're not going to be able to keep her in the sport for long enough for her to acheive her potential if they don't figure out how to work productively with young children, which includes making their expectations clear ahead of time.

Weird example, I guess, but I have a "willful" child (not my gymmie). When she was little, if I got her a baloon and then said, "Now lets tie it around your wrist so it doesn't fly away" she would throw a FIT! So I learned to say, "I will get you a balloon if you let me tie it around your wrist" and then she would agree to have it tied around her wrist. She needed to know ahead of time what was expected of her... what the conditions of balloon ownership were. If the coaches had said, "You have a limited amount of warm-up time and you need to warm up on all of the equipment or else it won't be safe. If you don't warm up completely, we won't be able to let you compete." there may have been a very different result. But of course, hindsight is 20/20... we had to have several balloon fits before I figured it out. Hopefully the coaches will approach future meets differently.

How is your daughter now? Has she been back in the gym since this happened? What are her feelings about that day and about her coaches now that it's behind her?

 

[Deleted member D3987]

that's right.^^^ some coaches are just no good with that age group.

 

[gymdog]

Apparently the warm up is 1/2 hour general warm up and stretch, then 15 minutes on each event one after the other. She told me that her order was Beam, Floor, Vault, Bars. Beam was one of the concerns. She was done that first. If the decision was made at that point to have her not compete beam, why wouldn't they have told her, then come tell us? There were 3 coaches there and my dd was the only one competing in this group.

She then (according to dd) warmed up floor then vault and did everything, the one thing she told me is that she was mad that they pulled her front tuck but she still went out and did her tumbling and all her other stuff.

My issue is that they knew 15 minutes in that her beam wasn't warmed up enough in their eyes. They should have told her at least, and reminded her that if she didn't warm up to their expectations, they would not let her compete the other events. I think this would have been reasonable.

To answer your other questions:

No, there is no language barrier.

If there was an issue with the competition equipment, then so be it, at least she would have been given the opportunity to try, you know? And the equipment wasn't unsafe, it was just different from what she's used to.

She didn't even know a thing about not competing until she was brought upstairs from the training gym. And she was devastated because she truly didn't think she had done anything wrong. We were an hour outside Montreal and she was still crying for us to take her back and let her compete. Begging. We told her it wasn't our decision, it was the coachs', but she was completely devastated and heartbroken, inconsolable.

Thanks for your insight. As a mom it's hard to be objective and see all sides of things. We will see in a couple of hours what the outcome will be.

Yes, I agree with most of what you said and think it would be a more reasonable way to handle it for an 8 year old, especially since this appears to be a first time thing and not an ongoing thing where there have been many warnings. So again, my personal approach would be to warm them that they need to do XYZ or XYZ will happen. So they don't do XYZ, they scratch that event...but if they warmed up vault and floor they would do vault and floor and scratch the other events. I would not let a kid compete an event with refusing to warm up on some of the equipment, most likely (i.e. I would not let them "try" in the competition), but I would let them do whatever they warmed up, and even if it was nothing I would expect them to stay at the meet (unless their behavior was out of control, but I have never encountered those circumstances) until the conclusion. I would explain that I need to see good attitude and support for the other competitors/teammates and we will try again at the next meet. I would not send a child home from the meet completely for the "first offense".

If there is no language barrier then it doesn't really make sense and I'm not sure why they would have approached it the way they did in the first place...again even scratching the events I am not sure why they would have her go home. I think it would be a better lesson to do whatever she warmed up, scratch beam and bars, and then see that the meet continued and other competitors warmed and competed on the available equipment.