WAG Confidence and it's impact on best/worst routines

[cbone]

I'll start with an observation. My daughter was doing well last year on beam. Then, in her second to last meet, she fell off of the beam. Beam has been her roughest routine since then. On the other hand, she used to struggle a lot with bars. At state, she had the bar routine of her life (a totally unexpected 2nd place! *proud papa*). Since then, she has been doing great on bars, tightening up her form and looking beautiful and fluid for the first time in her brief gymnastics career.

My first question is this: have you guys seen a flip-flopping of a gymnast's toughest routine like this? And my second question: if it is about confidence, how does a gymnast gain back lost confidence most effectively?

 

[B&M's mom]

Yes. My oldest dd has flipped flopped almost yearly on her favorite/worst routines depending on what's working and what isn't. My youngest has started doing the same thing.

Regaining confidence, for my kids, has come through practice and repetition. They had to work through the rough spots and just keep going. There was no magic moment but just a sense that they could master the skill and move forward. And they have. As my oldest has progressed, she's learned that there will be skills that she struggles with but she never gives up and has eventually mastered them. That bit of insight has come with age and years in the sport. (She's all of 12 so it does come fairly quickly). As a result, she doesn't have quite the ups and downs that my youngest is still struggling with.

 

[Mack_the_Ripper]

Best/worst event does change over the years. For example, when I was a level 5 I got 9.5s on bars but wobbled all over the place on beam. In level 6, my beam routine was solid gold but my bars were crap. Nowadays (L8) I'm struggling on floor but vault is the best it's ever been. It really depends on the routines for each level, what the coaches are focusing on, personal breakthroughs...it's also important not to extrapolate a trend from too few data points, you know?

 

[cbone]

As my oldest has progressed, she's learned that there will be skills that she struggles with but she never gives up and has eventually mastered them. That bit of insight has come with age and years in the sport. (She's all of 12 so it does come fairly quickly). As a result, she doesn't have quite the ups and downs that my youngest is still struggling with.

I'm glad you said this. I sometimes find myself silently frustrated that other teammates have caught onto skills more quickly than my little one. When I read this, I realized that those girls are three years older and that my little one is doing great for being the baby on the team. Thanks.

 

[iwannacoach]

I'm glad you said this. I sometimes find myself silently frustrated that other teammates have caught onto skills more quickly than my little one. When I read this, I realized that those girls are three years older and that my little one is doing great for being the baby on the team. Thanks.

I.m thinking your dd is about 7yo. Kids at that age tend to generalize based upon recent past experiences...ie. "I fell, so I lost it". It's also an age where positives have a huge impact, unless they're still stuck on that past bad experience. If you continue to show concern it may temper her thoughts in a bad way....."If daddy is worried, then I must have a problem" will sink in. Try to lighten up her concerns, make positive fun/light of her situation if she brings it up, but otherwise let it go for a month...or two before asking how that part of her gym world is doing.

As she gets older she will realize that she can affect her outcomes rather than her outcomes affecting her, and work to solve problems rather than letting them define her.

 

[Danica76]

I think iwannacoach has some great advice on this It is hard, as a parent, not to get frustrated sometimes, as we just want them to feel good about what they're doing (I work at the gym, so imagine how hard the parent/coach/gymnast/child balance is for us! It's an ongoing process!). But the above advice is sound - they do catch onto our feelings, even if we hold them in, we give off non-verbal cues to our kids. My DD tells me all the time that I give her this "look". Most of the time I am completely oblivious to the fact that I am doing it. Perfect example of those non-verbal cues. My DD is 8 and it is so true that as soon as she falls on something, she thinks she has "lost it". It is very psychological. We all just keep trying to encourage her and build her up. Point out how well she has done something else or how much a skill has improved.

I think it all comes back to the famous, sage, CB saying of, "gymnastics is a marathon, not a sprint." I want to say that GymDad is the one who came up with it, but someone please correct me if I am wrong. Our kids will be stellar on some things, sometimes and not so much at others. They will struggle, they will excel, they will plateau and they will break through (hopefully) and keep on moving if they stick around through the struggles. As someone said in a recent post, it is so important to focus on the process part of gymnastics. I have recently come to the conclusion that this is why I love my DD participating in gymnastics - the process. It builds incredible character to continue to do a sport where you are constantly trying to pursue perfection, but where perfection is as rare as a unicorn (look at McKayla Maroney's stuck Amanar in team competition. That was pretty freaking perfect, but not to the judges!). Where once you get one skill, there is always one to start working on, right on the heels of the last. The celebrations are brief, because there's always something new to learn. So I guess what I am trying to say is that I try to celebrate the process, it is what I find beautiful about the sport. I watched my DD struggle last year as a first year L4. And it sure was frustrating. But, I have seen her grow in leaps and bounds in the gym this summer, as a person and the confidence and skills have improved so much. Will it be enough for her to get on the podium? I really don't care. She is a great kid who has become greater because of gym. That's what I try to focus on.

I don't know if any of that helps, but I do understand where you are coming from. I was a wreck last season, because my DD was behind the rest of the group. But, I have let that go (and she has caught up to everyone else and surpassed some, in certain areas - it just takes her a little longer to do so) because my DD loves gymnastics, even though she is not the superstar. I really don't want to ruin it for her by making her feel like what she is doing is not good enough. (not saying that you are!!! but, I think from my posts, you know where my intentions lie).

And I think wrote that more for me than for you, cbone! LOL!

 

[cbone]

Thanks, guys. MM, I agree with you about what gym does for a child. I am SUPER proud of my daughter's accomplishments, but if the podium went away and she still loved the sport and tried her best every time, I'd still be a gym dad with a smile on my face. The hardware's just a bonus.

 

[Natasha]

I.m thinking your dd is about 7yo. Kids at that age tend to generalize based upon recent past experiences...ie. "I fell, so I lost it". It's also an age where positives have a huge impact, unless they're still stuck on that past bad experience. If you continue to show concern it may temper her thoughts in a bad way....."If daddy is worried, then I must have a problem" will sink in. Try to lighten up her concerns, make positive fun/light of her situation if she brings it up, but otherwise let it go for a month...or two before asking how that part of her gym world is doing.

As she gets older she will realize that she can affect her outcomes rather than her outcomes affecting her, and work to solve problems rather than letting them define her.

THis is great advice! Today on the way home my dd said "I lost my giants the last 2 days" I responded "Where do you think they are hiding?" And our conversation turned into a fun time of imagining all the fun places her giants could be hiding in the gym...do you think they are buried under the blocks in the pit? or are they hanging up in the spotting belt? THe conversation ended with "I'm sure they'll get tired of hiding soon and they'll be back before you know it...to which my dd responded "yeah, they seem to come and go." And then we figured out where to stop for food on the way home...
The reality is, there isn't one single thing I can do to get her giants back. She doesn't want me to try to solve her problem, she just needed to vent a little and she needed to know that I have confidence in her and that I am not the least bit worried about her giants.
THis has all come with time for me though. Believe me, there were plenty of times when she was L4 that I thought I could actually help her with skills she was having a hard time with, and all I did was add to her stress level. Now I just let her work through it with her coaches.
And yes, my dd's best events/favorite events have changed from level to level and even from day to day sometimes depending on what skills she is working on.

 

[gymmomof1]

THis is great advice! Today on the way home my dd said "I lost my giants the last 2 days" I responded "Where do you think they are hiding?" And our conversation turned into a fun time of imagining all the fun places her giants could be hiding in the gym...do you think they are buried under the blocks in the pit? or are they hanging up in the spotting belt? THe conversation ended with "I'm sure they'll get tired of hiding soon and they'll be back before you know it...to which my dd responded "yeah, they seem to come and go." And then we figured out where to stop for food on the way home...
The reality is, there isn't one single thing I can do to get her giants back. She doesn't want me to try to solve her problem, she just needed to vent a little and she needed to know that I have confidence in her and that I am not the least bit worried about her giants.
THis has all come with time for me though. Believe me, there were plenty of times when she was L4 that I thought I could actually help her with skills she was having a hard time with, and all I did was add to her stress level. Now I just let her work through it with her coaches.
And yes, my dd's best events/favorite events have changed from level to level and even from day to day sometimes depending on what skills she is working on.

Exactly the same conversations we have had lol . And yes, it's amazing how one event can be so challenging one year and then become a strength another year! One year for dd it was vault-then she went from not placing to 2nd in the state, another year it was beam, same outcome and this year--who knows just have to wait and see lol!