Coaches did not let dd compete at Gymnix

[Canadian_gym_mom]

This is the way we have always approached things with her, at home and how I have encouraged them to do at gym. "Either you do the shuttle run, or you do 5 rope climbs." "If you don't get up on the beam and try the back handspring again, you will have to go sit in the changeroom." Clearly state the expectations, and the consequence for not doing it.

As I type this stuff, if I was someone who didn't know my dd, it might sound like she doesn't want to even do gym, or that she's some out of control kid. She really does love gym, and she is a really great kid. She just needs specific direction in a lot of what she does.

And to clarify, the coaches did not send her home from the meet. My dd refused to do anything stood there crying in the corner and then when anyone went to her she ran away. I was so pissed at the coaches, mad at her (at that point I only knew what the coaches had told me) that it was my choice to take her out of there. In my opinion she was so upset that taking her in to watch her event would have been pure torture on her.

I am going to make a new post with the update on how the meeting went and the outcomes. It was positive.

 

[Canadian_gym_mom]

First of all I wanted to thank everyone who responded to my vent. I've never even visited this area of the forum before, who knew I would get so many responses? They were all helpful and I appreciate everyone's input and experience/advice.

So we went to the gym to meet yesterday, and the SECOND my dd and I walked through the door, the owner was all over her with big hugs and tears in her eyes.

The meeting went well. I do believe that the coaches had my dd's best interests at heart. When talking about the warm up, my main questions to them were why wasn't she able to compete the 2 events that she warmed up well, why wasn't she clearly told what she needed to do to be able to compete the events and the consequences of not doing it, and why did they wait until the entire warm up was over and it was too late to try anything else to come and tell us?

The way my dd described beam was that she did her routines on the beam and then only refused to use the one beam. That was not exactly true. She did her individual skills on the low beam. With a lot of "encouragement". When she went to another high beam she did a couple of skills but then the time was up and they had to move on. Why didn't they come tell me at that point? Because apparently the "person in charge" had told them that when she got finished her last rotation they could sneak her back around to beam to do one more set on the equipment.

So at that point they were happy and confident, didn't come tell me anything because they thought it would all work out. They moved through floor and vault, and just like dd had told me they were thrilled with how she did, although she did actually have a time out on floor because of her reaction to them taking out her front tuck. But it worked out and everyone was still confident moving to bars.

Then it all went down. She did at one point jump to the high bar, not in a full routine, and only after sitting on the low bar for almost 30 seconds, supposedly about a full half of her allotted turn. Then she refused to go on the other bar, and once they got back to the original bar, the person called the end of the rotation. They told her she wasn't going to be able to compete if she didn't do the routine in full, go back to beam and do a full routine there as well.

So dd went and got her track suit on and stood with her arms crossed, basically shut down and refused to talk or even look at the coaches. She made the choice herself basically. And this was when they came up to talk to me. That part was the huge misunderstanding. I didn't realize that she was done at that point. I thought they were telling me there was still time to get her to come around, when in reality it was already over for her.

So they WERE willing to let her compete those 2 events, but she was at that point not willing/able/understanding of what was going on. Once she realized it was true, the competition was going on without her, was when she broke down crying and screaming and saying she just wants to compete.

That was when I made the decision to get her out of there.

So that's how the situation played out there. As we spoke during the meeting yesterday the coaches were clearly upset about it all. They spoke of how they all tried so hard and everyting they did to get her extra warm up time, to encourage her and also they did tell her that if she doesn't do the specific things in warm up that she couldn't compete. The head coach's words were that they were so disappointed because they know how talented she is and how they wanted her to go out and show everyone how good she is, and it broke their hearts to have to say she couldn't compete.

Moving forward, there is an invitational meet in 2 weeks where she is supposed to compete. They are going to see how everything goes this week (it's March Break here so they are doing extra daytime training this week) work through warm up routines (it's back in Ontario where the rules are different yet again) and see if she is comfortable and confident to compete. If not there is an invitational she is scheduled for in May and they will add an extra one in June for her.

We came out of the meeting satisfied all around. I still wish they would have come to me after the beam thing, just so that we could have made sure the same thing didn't happen on bars, but they really thought they would be able to get through to her and work everything out.

So we move forward. I know they love the girls and I know that in the grand sceme of things this will end up a tiny part of things. The fact remains it was her very first competition and a HUGE competition like Gymnix and like Bog said yesterday, now it's tainted. But at least I know that dd's story wasn't exactly accurate and the coaches weren't blatently lying to me, and I know the coaches tried everything they could to make it work.

Thanks again to everyone who responded. I appreciate all the input. Sorry this ended up being such a novel. Maybe it will be Chapter 10 in my great gymnastics parent memoir that will make me rich and famous someday.

Editing to add: We did talk with dd about using her words more in the gym (geez for a girl who often doesn't stop TALKING it's funny to encourage using her word, lol) but that when she doesn't want to do something, not to stand with arms crossed and be silent, to tell the coaches, "I'm afraid to jump to the high bar" my leg hurt on the last back handspring and I'm uncomfortable", etc. so that they know what is going on and they can work through things. Because when she is silent and seemingly pouty, they think she is just being stubborn and difficult, so they need to hear what she is thinking about. I hope she got it, she seemed to understand.

 

[gymgal]

Glad it worked out and you got answers. I had a feeling it would play out like what you describe. Kids at that age typically cannot relate highly emotional events accurately. They get caught up in their own version of the truth. Not purposefully lying, just not recalling accurately. Sounds like a good plan moving forward.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[Deleted member D3987]

sounds like it all worked out. and let her know that no communication=no progress. remind her that coaches can not read her mind.
hopefully, the next time out will be fruitful now that she's know what the 'rules' are at a meet.

 

[gymmomtoo]

Glad the meeting with the coaches went well and there is a plan moving forward. I hope her next meet goes much better!