Parents How do you deal?

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Okay.. so I need to vent... it has been a real frustrating week for me.

Beetle is doing just fine. She is going to Regions next week. She is trying to stay focused in competition mode. But it is a little difficult for her since she and 3 other teammates are the only ones going to Regions. Everyone else is uptraining and working new skills.

We have 1 amazing Level 10. She qualified for Nationals in her 1st year as a level 10 last year. She took 1st in the AA at the Chicago Style meet. She scores in the high 37's and low 38's. She is starting to train Olympic level skills (full in's. Yurchenko Double Fulls on Vault.) I love this girl to death.. she is super supportive of all the other teammembers she is friendly and considerate of parents and all around good girl.

So, whats the problem you ask? Head Coach...

HC seems to focus everything on her. In practice, he stops the other girls routines if he needs to watch her (he doesn't stop her to watch other girls routines). When talking to him about Beetle he will always use this girl as an example.

And recently, he is working on starting her college recruiting. (she is only a freshman) I made the mistake of offering to help put together a website for her. Now EVERY TIME I am in the gym.. he asks me about it, about her about the progress.. I try to ask about Beetle, he brings it back to her... also we have been told that as a team we are going to out of state meets to have this 1 girl recognized for college...

I sometimes feel like the gym revolves around her. Regions, for instance. The coaches need to be at Regions on Thursday for meetings for Level 10's. The other 3 are all Level 8's don't compete till Sunday. I asked if we could come in on Wednesday to practice since Beetle and the other L'8s would go from Tuesday till Sunday without practice. I was told only if I wanted to do a private lesson. It is completely frustrating! When we went to Chicago we were 'strongly encouraged' to do a early morning practice on Thursday because the L10 didnt compete till Saturday. and needed the extra time Really? But my kid cant get practice and she will go 5 days? I was told, she will be fine and it is just for fun.. Well I dont want her going out and being 199 out of 200 or worse yet getting hurt!

Now, dont get me wrong.. I dont blame the gymnast. Like I said I love this girl. Love her mom and consider them both friends.. I wish her all the luck in the world!

I am just tired of there being a seperate set of rules for her. I am tired of paying extra so we can do meets so she gets noticed, I am tired of hearing how great this girl is.. for once I want to hear how my great Daughter is!

Does anyone out there have 1 extraordinary gymnast? Elite or Olympian? How does your gym handle it? Are my feelings justified?
 
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I think every gym has this one gymnast you are talking about. The group that dd trains with we call "the bottom feeders." They always seem to be the crap group.

There are the one who can do no wrong and seem to never get in trouble.

Just tonight dd mentioned one girl who always misses practice and doesn't get in trouble for it. I told that it doesn't hurt anyone else but herself. All dd can do is go in and work hard and then work even harder.

The one good thing for your dd is that this girl is either 1 yr or 2 yrs older than your dd. If this girl stays at your gym through HS she will probably bring in some really good coaches to look at her for college and then hopefully the will also see your dd. I know our HC puts all of the HS girls in 1 workout group when a coach comes in for a visit so that they also see what else we have coming down the pipeline - maybe your dd's HC will think the same way.

The only real suggestion that I could offer would be for you to take break from the gym. If you don't see what's going on, you can't think about it.

Glad to hear that training is going good for dd though - great confidence booster going into Regionals... :D
 
Is this the first girl of this quality at your gym? If so, that might explain why the HC is a bit of a nut about her.

My dd's gym has a few top level girls, and while they do get more attention from the head-coaches, I don't feel it is at the same level of what you are describing. Because our coaches have gone through all of this before, they realize that they must continue to bring up the next girls while pushing the top girls.

Not practicing for 5 days before Regionals is absurd. I'd keep bugging him about it. Maybe it will help the hc notice that he has other good, potentially great gymnast to look after.

Good luck at regionals.
 
Oh I feel your pain. In fact, I've been meaning to talk to the owner of our gym for a few days now, to no avail. I, too, am very frustrated. DD is also grouped with the "bottom feeders". I love that term!!! There are 2 very talented gymnasts and they get all the coaching while the other girls basically "coach" themselves. Our BEST coach is probably leaving. This is definitely a recurring theme in our gym. I am so frustrated and am to the point of starting to check out other gyms. We have states in 2 weeks, and the girls are NOT being properly prepared. We all pay the same money (BIG BUCKS) for coaching, and some get it and some don't! Don't they realize they'll lose gymnasts with this training "philosophy?"

Good luck at Regionals. Beetle MUSt be doing SOMETHING right to get there!!! Let us know how she does!
 
Same thing here, we have one girl who gets taken to extra meets, all in secret of course, we don't get make up classes either. As in the HC takes her to a meet and my DD's group has their training cancelled, if dd wants a make up we have to pay for a private. We are supposed to believe the HC is "at a meeting", I know far too many people in the gym world to believe that. It drives me bonkers that the HC keeps this big secret and that parents are paying for make ups when the coach should be fixing it up for free.

Gyms are weird places, full of weird acting people. I would talk to the other parents and see if they all want the wed practice, if so then keep bugging that coach.

Tell Beetle we send her all our good luck fairies for regionals, what a huge acheivment first year L8, just WOW!!!
 
Just on the same line as Bog said, I refer to the gym this way:

Gym = fantasyland

Things that happen in the gym would never go over in the real world, but over the yrs I have just come to the conclusion that it's the way it is in the gym.

I swear that when my dd is a level 10 there will be some phenom level 5 and the coaches will cling to her and once again my dd will be amonst the "bottom feeders." :rolleyes:

I can say though that my dd does get the coaching because she has event coaches, I can still see the difference in treatment, to some extent - but she is not ignored.
 
I can see how you would be frustrated. I would as well.

I definitely think that something needs to be worked out so the girls going to regionals can practice before they leave for regionals. Is there not another coach that can keep an eye on them, help them out in some way and let them practice on their own at least? It wouldn't be a normal practice, but can't imagine going that many days without practice before a HUGE meet at that level.

Good luck to you on getting this resolved somehow, at least the practice issue. The favortism is obvious and it is really unfair.
 
I also see two differnt issues here.
One is immediate and pretty acute and that is going 5 days without training before a meet - and it's regionals!!!!!!!!!!!! I would insist on having the girls train until the day you leave for the meet. There must be another coach that can be with them, they can't just cancel practice!! You have to be very adamant about this.

The other issue is favoritism - this exists in every gym. It's not right, but it's understandable.

We also have a gymnast like this at our gym (had two but one went back to her home country) who gets most of the attention. She is very talented and I can understand the coach paying a lot of attention to her. BUT... other girls cannot be ignored and not EVERYTHING can revolve around one girl. If it continues this way...it's worth a talk with the coach/owner.
 
That does sound frustrating. Unfortunately the favoritism is everywhere, and like you said- you love the girl, it's not her fault. They do deserve the credit for their talent. The biggest issue is the way the HC will just ignore the other girls. No practice for 5 days before regionals is CRAZY. I know it's supposed to be fun, but they work hard for this, your DD deserves to be at her best that she can be on that day. Not out of pratice.

On a good note-GOOD LUCK @ Regionals!!!!!!!!
 
I think this is a common issue at a lot of gyms. In our gym there is at least 1 or 2 at every level like that. The coaches focus all their attention on the "top 2 or 3" girls and the rest well I guess as someone here stated its the "bottom feeder" group. We did 2 - 3 privates a week with the owner (he is great in privates really helps alot) from Dec - March and DD's skills improved A LOT! When I say A LOT I mean going from an AA score of about 32 - 33 to 35 - 36 in just a few short months.

My DD was a bottom feeder Until the last 4 meets of this last season. All of a sudden now that the privates had paid off - she was becoming a favorite with all of her scores contributing to the team score and the coaches started giving her the attention of the gym queens. I though well someone else must have complained and they are now trying to make the effort to give everyone the same attention.

How foolish of me. Once states were over the truth came out. The Gym Queens at my daughters level all had changed gyms to the gym that came in first at states (they only beat us by .025 for first place team - so very close). Well I didn't figure it out until a week after the meet when those girls didn't show up I asked one of the other parents who has 3 girls on team (don't know how she does it) if she had seen them - She told me what happened and well low and behold now my DD seems to be marked as one of the top girls and is getting the extra attention.

She of course is flourishing and getting her skills much quicker which I have to say I do like and is definitely a different feeling for me as a mom, but I still don't like the top few getting the attention. I would rather see all the girls getting equal attention and having a balanced team where at meets everyone's scores on the team can contribute to the team score not just the few royals every time.
 
I'm surprised that they don't have practice at the Regional site. That is how it is in this region. The coaches do have to be there for meetings earlier, but they have an open work-out time that evening so the girls don't miss so many days of training.

One year the coaches had to be there on Thursday for meetings and such with the competition running Friday - Sunday. The girls worked out on Thursday and those that didn't compete until Sunday also worked out on Saturday between sessions, but at a local gym. Is it possible to ask the coach to do something like that?
 

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