Why do coaches do this to kids??

[Deleted member D3987]

when it comes to CGM/D's, they exist all over the world. but a parent doesn't walk in to the gym in China and ask the coaches when their dd or ds is going to learn their kip, or giant or anything else for that matter. it just doesn't happen. i've been there and i know this first hand. i've been to several of the other countries i listed also. as both a competitor and a coach. parents are non-existent. this DOES NOT make them negligent. coaches are paid more than Doctors in some of these countries and they are very well respected.

this is why the foreign coaches think that America is a little nuts when they come here. when you ask them when will Suzy learn her kip? they either say they don't understand the word "kip" or they "don't know" Suzy so speak to the owner.

and some of us have been established a long time. some of us don't have these problems because we are already well known and trusted. we're in our communities with excellent credentials and reputations. in our gym they know not to ask these mindless questions. BUT, we give them 3 months notice when their child will be moving up and prepare for a life change. they are given a schedule. they know the routine as they already have been mentored by other parents in the gym. those parents know that this necessary evil must take place lest the staff wastes time attempting to answer mindless questions that can never be answered. good gyms have some sort of system in place to mentor and educate. no one is strung along. no promises are made. and as much as it hurts, if there is no hope for their child to ever progress, which happens from time to time, they are told. and we know this after a couple of years of training. it's only fair. they might excel at something else. therefore, we have a moral responsibility to let the parent know that gymnastics is not in their future. you may call that "winnowing", but the truth is that we can't coach every child in gymnastics and there are not enough knowledgeable coaches anywhere in the world let alone the USA.

it's late. gotta pack for nationals. i'll pick this up later. good night.

 

[mommyof1]

I really can see both sides on this... I do think it should be okay to question and wonder and not blindly trust when it comes to my child. On the other hand, I would think that after several years progressing in a gym where you've had good experiences and the kids are happy, you should be able to hand most of your trust right over to them without question, unless something changes.

A lot of this depends on the age and personality of the child. Little kids just aren't going to be able to recognize unsafe or abusive coaching and tell you about it. And some teenagers won't be able to recognize it or willing to tell you about it either.

 

[wallinbl]

when will Suzy learn her kip?

One of the funniest videos on YouTube!

 

[gymcoach34]

I think a phone call to the gym is totally ok. The coaches have many many kids to look out for- they could have fogotten (not ok either, but it happens), one digit on a phone # could have been off, wrong email address, etc. It could very well be there is NOTHING sinister going on- it could have been a human error that led to no notification. Just give a call and ask-thats the only way you will know for sure.

 

[ollieblueeyes]

Parents need to know scheduling, plain and simple. If my child is an optional and all of the optionals practice the same hours, I think it's fine to say, "she's training 8, but if she doesn't get all of her 8 skills, she may end up competing 7 again." But if the level 4's and 5's practice at totally different times on totally different days, parents need to know when their kids will be practicing. Not to say that "moving up" or "not moving up" can't be a angst-laden topic for children and parents, but even all angst aside, we need to know what our kid's schedule is going to be, and the more advanced notice we have of this, the better.

This is absolutely my vent... I just want to know when the teams are scheduled to practice. I know DD2 is on the bubble and its up to her as to where she falls. I was hoping to know how to schedule for daycare over the summer. Typically we get 2-3 days notice instead of 3 months....

 

[Bajanswife]

I really like how my DD's gym has things set up. The girls are split into training groups that don't necessarily have just one level in them. They are actually split more by age and ability to some extent. When I say that, DD started team as a level 3, and our gym had just gotten more coaches and were able to take on more team gymnasts. Based on tryouts the head coach picked a squad of girls who were ages 7 and 8 and trained them for level 3. The older level 3s (10+) trained with the level 4s and 5s under a different coach. The HC loves her little group so much that she hasn't wanted to let them go, so she's taken them through level 4 and they are now training level 5. New level 3s have joined our group if they were similar age and ability; level 3s who are older, younger or slower in progress are in different training groups. It has helped that no matter what level DD was training, her days pretty much remained the same - all that happened from level 3 to 4 was the addition of a day. For us there's no question of "are we moving up?" The HC trains each girl individually to her own ability and each girl competes at the level she is able to e.g. some of the level 4s started competing at that level before some of the others because of missing skills. Our 2 sets of bars are close to each other so if some girls in her group are working on kips and some are still trying to improve their front hip circles, she'll divide them accordingly and they'll rotate so that they all get a turn working with her spotting and then practising alone. Same for beam etc. I have found that the parents are pretty relaxed about where their child is because most of them are able to see why their kid might not be able to compete a new level at the next meet, but being "held back" competition wise does not separate the girls from their friends/training partners so it's no big deal for them.

 

[profmom]

From my ignorant perspective, it makes a lot of sense to set up groups by roughly what skills they're learning and leave the level determination for closer to when the meet season starts. It seems like the anxieties about groups/workout schedules get terribly magnified when they're additionally entangled with "OMG, what level will Suzie compete?"

Our gym will announce the "sure thing" move ups in a few weeks, and a few of the parents are getting somewhat wound up. In a way, I'm kind of relieved that my daughter's unlikely even to be on the bubble, because I think she will have a much easier time with summer uptraining if she doesn't feel like there's anything at stake in getting or not getting the skills, aside from her pure joy in getting them.

 

[iwannacoach]

It seems as I read through these post that alot of the dialog attempts to provide information that can be seen as a genuine offering to elighten what has become "the other side". The ability to jump from "why" to "because you..." is a sad evolution in the relationship of gymnast/coach/parent. I feel that today's society suffers from an erosion of trust, respect, courtesy, and obligation. It's within this framework that reactions have been honed to distrust, accuse, and malign. This is not the fault of either the coaches or parents, but it is to our collective benifit to correct society's course with-in our own little worlds.

I don't feel that it's right to establish a frame work for notification, and then ignore it's very utility. That's just plain wrong. Part of me wonders, however, why that frame work was abandoned. I'd suggest the likely culprits could be fear, anxiety, and frustration remaining from past experiences.

I took a little time to "keep score" and the results may allow us all to understand why we coaches will just throw up our hands and draw a line in the sand. What I noticed is the parentts in this post out-numbered the coaches, not just by a wide margin, but also by a wide range of emotions. Keep in mind that in the communication dynamic, one person has only so much capacity to answer to a host of inquiries ranging from what should my dd eat the night before a competition to "why can't Suzie kip!" Throw in a parent or two that spend 50% of their time at competitions complaining about the coaching and coach's decisions to any nearby parent, and you have a recipe for nuanced conversational warfare with a ratio of as many as 8 to 1, or 7 to 2 if your lucky enough to have a parent willing to stand up on the coach's behalf.

I understand concepts of "procedural justice" but question the ability of many empassioned parents to recognize transparent, fair, and impartial decisions, regardless of the mechanisms in place to provide such. They simply can not be convinced their daughter has been treated fairly. My fear is that these people, guided by their own narrow view, are taking us along for the ride as they drive the "car" over the cliff with the impression they can "bail out" if things get out of control while the rest of us suffer the impact. I would like to make the case that it is not the coach's responsibility to take their hands off the wheel, nor to keep them as far away from the car as possible at all times. These parents are the last ones that should be driving our collective discussions, and as concerned parents and coach's we should all stand up to this sort of threat to open, sincere communication. We may not be able to change the world around us, but it is our duty, priveledge, and honor to change the world with-in our midst for our own benifit.

I want all parents to know that a great many coaches have nothing but the best intentions, are gifted in their craft, and feel an enormous responsibility to each child and family. It's just a matter of not being able to do better than satisfying some of the people all the time, or all of the people some of the time, and it will stay that way until people come to realize that the adults are merely bystanders as the kids try to do their best with what they all have.....ambition, hope, dedication, enthusiasm, hard work.....

I know it's tough to be a parent, to juggle schedules, family needs, and wonder what boundaries to observe, and I can't force every club to be fair, timely and transparent. About the only encouragement I can offer you is that we coaches love to teach and mentor kids in this sport. We tend to be very generous with our time. Some of us have fewer life experiences to draw on, but in time, and surrounded by parents who can force dialog in a constructive direction, they to will come to be great coaches and communicators. So I'll just respectfully offer this bit of indignant logic. Parents outnumber coaches in the range of 8 to 1. If there needs to be improved communication and an atmospere that fosters communication in a club where there is none, step up and offer a constructive frame work that allows every body some of what they want.

 

[Moxiegrl83]

I think it comes down to trusting your coach and their reputation. I'm not leaving my kid with anybody I don't fully trust. Especially at an age when they can't always communicate what happened and how. This has nothing to do with gymnastics, it has to do with my responsibility as a parent. Luckily that's not an issue at our gym.

I'm still there most of the time, all the moms of pre-team are mostly. Team girls there are only a few parents that stay, a couple religiously. Since our HC is also the owner, we deal with her a lot more then other gyms might. I personally like it. It's a small enough place she knows every kid and their parents. All the parents seem genuinely happy to support all the kids, and look out for each other. I've never got the feeling she's annoyed by talking about how DD is doing. If anything it seems to excite her, and she seems just as happy as I am telling me about her new skill, or her silly toes on beam. My DD loves to get homework from her (like doing 10 locks for before mentioned toes).

 

[LiveLoveTumble]

Moxiegrl83, please stop dragging up old threads. I started a thread about that (http://www.chalkbucket.com/forums/community-news/37702-reminder-old-threads.html) but it seems that those who need to see it are not reading it. Thanks!

 

[Moxiegrl83]

Sorry. There was no old thread marker on the first post and I didn't read the date. Wow. Moving on...

 

[C's MOM]

the above 4 posts clarifies exactly what i'm talking about with the parent/coach cycle trap. and back in the day...nobody asked these mindless and unproductive questions. this includes when i was an athlete. we worked out. we worked out almost every day. month after month. year after year. the coaches never saw a parent except at a competition. it was peaceful until after seoul 1988 and the introduction of the 10 level system. and the sport has departed to the land of no return. and our country became more entitled. too many opportunites, too many options and if i don't like my chicken wings i'm going down the street. this has hurt our industry in too many ways for me to list here today. but you guys post about most of them weekly. you just have no reference as to why things are the way they are today.

luckily, the sport hardens those in it the longest. i have witnessed parents evolve from where they were as helicopter parents to where they arrived with their gymnasts. it's a long and arduous road.

I'm not sure I completely understand your post Dunno. I do understand that some parents are somewhat like puppet on a string handlers and they want everyone to do as they want. But I as a parent have never really felt comfortable talking about levels/move ups etc. with either of my two DDs coaches. I have never been able to put a finger on why, but I just haven't. I can clearly talk to them about something else, but as for my DD's progress to move up I just can't.
With that all said and done it does allow me to trust more in her coaches. I notice the attention paid to her, and then I can tell her that with out a doubt, "If you work hard, coach will notice that. So keep trying, and he will see that." It seems to work with her. Now she may have her off days, but for the most part she does work hard. So the connection that desire and hard work leads to success and progress is an easier lesson for DD to learn.
With that I'm happy.

 

[C's MOM]

Moxiegrl83, please stop dragging up old threads. I started a thread about that (http://www.chalkbucket.com/forums/community-news/37702-reminder-old-threads.html) but it seems that those who need to see it are not reading it. Thanks!

I just caught the date too, but I have to say that what the OP posted is a never ending story. I have been asked about three times this week by three different parts if I have ever received move up notifications for my DD. This could be enlightening.

 

[gymmomtotwo]

Hi, see this thread got a little active so thought I would give it an update. DD finally did get an answer about 5 days after she was told in writing that she would get an answer. She did not make the program she was hoping for. She had a good cry, felt sad for awhile and has moved on. In fact, gymnastics is history for her, and she is happily trying other things. There wasn't anything unfair or cruel about the tryout or the result, just the lack of care in doing what was promised. She really had her hopes up because her coach encouraged her to try out and the wait was really agonizing for her. That was really what I was venting about, not the whole wait until a week before summer vacation to tell what level you will be in for the summer. That has its own frustrations, but you are told to expect it. Just wanted to let everyone know the final result. I still have another little gymmie who is almost 6, so Have learned that I have to tolerate the last minute schedule thing.

 

[Gymmonkeymomma]

Sorry. There was no old thread marker on the first post and I didn't read the date. Wow. Moving on...

Hmm, idk what (if any) other old threads you've dredged up, but i hardly think TWO MONTHS is considered "old" especially on a topic such as this one - moving up issues at this time of year, when gymmies are wondering and perhaps stressing over whether they will move up for the new season in a couple of months!

(didn't mean to go off-topic)

 

[bogwoppit]

Moxiegrl83, please stop dragging up old threads. I started a thread about that (http://www.chalkbucket.com/forums/community-news/37702-reminder-old-threads.html) but it seems that those who need to see it are not reading it. Thanks!

Please remember you are not a mod and do not get to decide threads if are old. If there is no warning at the top then things are fair game. If you have an issue with a poster notify the mods, do not try to take the law into your own hands please.

 

[LiveLoveTumble]

Please remember you are not a mod and do not get to decide threads if are old. If there is no warning at the top then things are fair game. If you have an issue with a poster notify the mods, do not try to take the law into your own hands please.

Sorry bout that bog. I tend to be kind of a control freak. I won't do it again.