Parents Why gymnastics?

[emandelsmom]

Curious as to why everyone put their child in gym.
Emma=we tried soccer-she cried the whole time, dance was too boring, etc. Ended up with gym. Hoped it would help with her being so clumsy! She is now consdered graceful!

Ellie=was carried to gym to watch her sister from the time she was born. I would tote the infant carrier up there to practice. She has grown up there. It is all she knows. She would sit at meets and rock to the music. She would say that if she was doing it she would win the game. Very confidant. So as I have told you all before at 5 she sweet talked her way on to her sister team. She could not do a cartwheel or pullover. picked these up in a few weeks. Had a great level one year.

 

[gymmomntc2e6]

Because when she was less than one she would stand on any toy that would get her higher off the ground. When she was two we would find her un the bathroom sink, on the top bunk ( after finding her up there we put the ladder, that we had taken down so she could not get up there back ). By 3 she was doing the monkey bars and watching her brothers baseball practice from the top of the 8 foot fence- arm draped over the top, just hanging there.

I figured the gym was the safest place !!!

Editing to add that also at two we would find her on top of the kitchen counters pulling things out of the cabinets. She did not use a chair or a stool. It was quite entertaining to watch.

 

[emandelsmom]

LOL-I can see why gym! Ellie at 1 and a half would put the lid down on the kitchen grabage can and stand on it! We would find her on top of counters. She is my climber.

 

[Shelovesthebars]

This is an interesting thread. My dd had a hard time learning to walk. I didn't really think anything of it until we started to really to motivate her at 14 months. She seemed to want to walk to get the colorful YOGO's from us. (colorful yougurt balls) We also noticed that her walking was just "off" kind of like she had massive spaghetti legs. At 15 months she fell and broke her leg while she was walking. We got therapy for her and her diagnoses was that she was just hyperflexible. Well, when she was 2.5 I figured out that gymnastics classes where less expensive than therapy and much better!!!! What we figured out from gymnastics is that she is not just flexible but equally strong. So gymnastics has helped put these two together for her as well as helped her with her body awareness. She also had trouble eating and gaining weight due to an undiagnosed food allergy that is now under control. Now you could never tell she had any issues at all!
I think it is interesting to note that my dd does gymnastics at every other sport she does (like on the soccer field, the dance floor,...) but doesn't even think about the other sports when she is at gymnastics.

 

[kevchriswilli]

love this thread..... J was climbing up my kitchen table by 9 months... I have the cutest video of this because we couldn't figure out how she got up there. In Missouri she would also as a toddler climb up the poles in our basement... we say she came out looking around...lol. We tried soccer (cried all the time) and then dance (cried again, she so hated it) Then by the age of 3 enrolled her in a tot class and in the gym is where she has always been and absolutely loves it.

 

[MdGymMom01]

DD started gymnastics because she was bored and tired of cheerleading and thought this would be the closest thing to it. She was a base and a flyer for cheer so she had both the strength and the flexibility that are so needed in gymnastics. She is terrible at ball sports (usually runs screaming when any ball is thrown towards her) so gym seemed to be a great fit. She also does ballet once a week and dabbles in cheer here and there and loves ice skating. Oh and in the summer, she lives in the pool (when she isn't at the gym).

I love hearing all the stories!! Too cute!

 

[Monkeygirlsmom]

well the girls started when oldest dd was 3 she would not do anything and my good friend and I put our girls in gymnastics together she loved it
and then younger dd started when she toted along with older and started at almost 2 when they let her try things with older dd!
she kept up with the almost 4 year olds at the time so we figured why not!

and baby dd well I think she will be on the gym too!
She is the worst at being a climber etc

 

[Blackie6]

We signed our daughter up because it was like physical therapy. She almost died at birth. She was developmentally delayed and has slight neurological impairment. We already had her in swimming classes, dance class and taught her to ride a bike by age 4. One side of her is tighter than the other. It was a way to force her to use her body and especially arms and legs equally. She went from being physcially limited to physically limitless...I thank the gymnastics program everyday for how well my daughter is doing now. I would watch her every minute of every practice if I could, and still cry at meets. I am her biggest fan and she is my hero.

 

[thnkGd4kds]

She went from being physcially limited to physically limitless...I thank the gymnastics program everyday for how well my daughter is doing now. I would watch her every minute of every practice if I could, and still cry at meets. I am her biggest fan and she is my hero.

Blackie, you're going to make ME cry! How precious and wonderful!

Without exaggeration, Caitlyn was STANDING on laps when she wasn't even 2 months old, bouncing! (Her first birthday party was a Tigger one, not because she liked Tigger, but because she was so bouncy. In any video with Cait on someone's lap, one sees her bouncing away. She used to bounce and whistle at the same time starting when she was about 5 months; I kid you not! It was hilarious! Now, she can't whistle, but she sure can still bounce! ) Cait was walking well at 10 months, listening to books while sitting on her head from about that time, climbing on everything (I can relate to the top bunk thing . . . we couldn't keep her off and soon just trusted her to get up and down). I guess when I realized that she was doing things that made other adults gasp while I just watched casually or carried on with what I was doing, trusting her physical capabilities, I knew that gymnastics would probably be a good fit. Plus, she needed an outlet for all of her energy!

 

[starmaker]

With Olivia it just seemed like the obvious thing to do. Once her little sister was born (she was all of 12 months) I thought we needed some mommy and me time and signed up at MyGym for a mommy and me toddler class. Her arm strength was amazing compared to other babies. Most babies could barely hang on bars and Olivia was holding chin ups. It was evident she a very physically-able baby. I had always attributed her flexibility to being a baby and having "stretchy" muscles. She has always had all three splits. She was also very early on many of the physical motor milestones i.e crawling at 5 mon, walking by 8 months, climbed in and out of crib by 12 months, and had it mastered by 18 months.

At 3 yo she was a bundle of energy and climbed and jumped off of everything and anything. She was also very agile (never had many accidents, bruises etc.) When she did her first cartwheel at 3 years old I decided it was time for an official gymnastics class. She started a preschool class at 3.5 years old and was on preteam by her 4th birthday. I think doing straddle presses by 4 years old really helped keep her in the sport. Coaches and parents alike were impressed by her strength and her promise. When she was between 3 and 4.5 years old her ability exceeded her mental age and as a parent it was very difficult to balance. Lately I've noticed the gap has lessen. She is an 'older' girl now (almost 7 years old) and is much better at pacing herself and communicating.

I've tried putting her in different activities but refuses to add anything to her schedule. She really enjoys her down time to draw, read, and play. She loves to cheer on her little sister's ice skating and softball games!

 

[Claire]

We should have known from birth that our DD would be a gymnast. She held her head up at birth and started rolling over at 3 weeks. She was/is so flexible that as a baby and toddler she would sleep with her legs in the straddle position and her head and torso laid straight down. (Hope you can visual that) I was scared for her sleeping like that and I asked the pediatrian about it. He said not to worry; she was just very flexible. Every once in awhile I catch her sleeping like that now and she is 10! Even so, since I knew absolutely nothing about gymnastics, she didn't start until she was 6 1/2, but she loved it from the start and has never looked back. It is clearly her passion and her love and dedication is inspriring.

 

[starmaker]

Without exaggeration, Caitlyn was STANDING on laps when she wasn't even 2 months old, bouncing! (Her first birthday party was a Tigger one, not because she liked Tigger, but because she was so bouncy. In any video with Cait on someone's lap, one sees her bouncing away. She used to bounce and whistle at the same time starting when she was about 5 months; I kid you not! It was hilarious! Now, she can't whistle, but she sure can still bounce! ) Cait was walking well at 10 months, listening to books while sitting on her head from about that time, climbing on everything (I can relate to the top bunk thing . . . we couldn't keep her off and soon just trusted her to get up and down). I guess when I realized that she was doing things that made other adults gasp while I just watched casually or carried on with what I was doing, trusting her physical capabilities, I knew that gymnastics would probably be a good fit. Plus, she needed an outlet for all of her energy!

Olivia would do the same thing. She would lock her knees and stand on your lap at 2 months old too. My grandparent alway said she was going to become bow legged. I just figured she was strong enough and would be ok. I too trusted her capabilities much more so than other parents. I knew if she climbed up there, she could get down (and she could).

 

[Midget's Dad]

Midget did a Mommy & Me class at 18 months but my wife was a dancer and so she ended up in dance at 2 and for the next 3 years. The last year of dance she also was doing tumbling and when we moved into a new house the gym was right across the street. So we put her in a rec class and 3 weeks later they asked her to try out for team. We had no idea what was going on but she tried out and was put in the level 2 group and off we went. For 3 months or so we had an overlap of 3 hours of dance and 3 hours of gym, but once dance ended we told her she had to choose one. She chose gym and off we went.

Oh somewhere in there we tried soccer. Total disaster. She was faster than every kid on the field as long as her asthma didn't flare up, but she refused to take the ball away from anyone because they might be sad (her words) so she usually just watched the ball bounce on by.

 

[mbphoto]

My kid does not read this or I probably would post this one although we do laugh about it between us now. When Bailey was 7, she wanted to go to dance class like her big sister. We took her and dropped her off once a week for a year. The recital time rolled around, we got her all dressed up in her cute little pink outfit, invited the whole extended family and sat with our mouths opened as she preformed. She was, lets just say, not the most graceful on the stage. The next day, while we had a break from dance after the big show, I asked her if she would like to try another activity while on break from dance. She went to the gym at 2 months from turning 8 years old in the rec. class. They told me she would sneak out of the little gym and go peek at the big girls on team practicing in the big gym. Come back, hide behind the big foam thingys and try what she saw them doing. She learned a bhs by herself and they moved her to level 4. She is now 12 and competing level 8. It has been a wild ride so far and I am thankful that she was not the best dancer in the world because she found her true love by process of elimination. She loves every moment of her time at that dang gym. I rarely get to hang with her anymore due to the extreme schedule but so glad she found her passion.

One more funny, when they were choreographing her floor, I overheard the lady that they brought in from KY to do it tell coach that she was going to put more strong tumbling in her routine and make it fun because she was not the greatest dancer in the world. LOL.

 

[NotAMom]

There was really no special reason for our girls. We never thought of our children as athletes because we were far from it. There was no physical nor psychological needs. It was just one of the many things the kids tried. We became committed more when our kids were asked to be a part of the development team. The rest is history (as least for the one).

 

[justanothergymmom]

When my oldest daughter was 3 1/2 we were watching gymnastics on TV. When a commercial came on she decided to get up from the sofa and chuck a backhandspring (onto her head!). She looked at me dazed afterward and said "I guess I should learn how to do that first..." The next morning I called a local gym and signed her up for a trial class...my younger daughters have followed in her footsteps...

 

[Ingwe]

My DD was a natural soccer player and I thought that was what she would do. One summer when she was 8 she went to Gymnastics with a friend. 3 years later (she just turned 11 yrs old) she is competing L7. Basically she just sort of fell into the sport. She has since given up soccer.

 

[Billy]

Boo just kind of fell into gymnastics, too. When she was 3, I decided she needed some kind of little activity, just for fun and entertainment. I took her to a preschool gymnastics class at a local community center and she loved it! Funny side story: once when she was crawling through one of those canvas tunnels, she never came out the other side and was blocking the line. Finally the teacher went to see what the problem was. Apparently there was a dead bug at the end of the tunnel and Boo was afraid to crawl past it! LOL Don't know why she didn't turn around and come back out the way she went in. LOL

Anyway, we moved shortly after that class ended. We decided to sign her up for a class in our new town since she loved the last one so much. We put her in a "real" gym, thinking that if she wanted to continue past preschool, we wouldn't have to find someplace new. She's never looked back. She joined the L2 team at 6 years old and now, at age 8, she's L7. We tried to suggest other activities to her but she's not interested. So, hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to gym we go.

 

[Granny Smith]

I was a gymnast growing up and knew that dd had the right body for the sport, if someone would just want to work with her they could develop her. She was in classes from the age of 4 and she was in the invitational group (same as pre-team) in Kindergarten. When we were at the endocrinologist (dd is very petite) and the endo said to us to have her do stuff that would keep her self-esteem up. What better thing when someone says to her "God, you're so small." Her response is well that's good, I'm a gymnast. Her height is a positive thing for her, not negative.

She even had another, older teammate (junior in HS) from her team just recently tell her she is going to be a tiny freshman next year! Wasn't that kind of her?

I can't say that she was a natural when she was younger, but she was a hard worker who has turned into a beautiful gymnast (sorry, sappy mom here!)

 

[cathiann]

Sami got enrolled at 3 yrs after watching the Olympics and she would do her own little floor routine in the backyard (always saluting after she was done). Beth got dragged there from birth (and before!) and couldn't wait to start when she was 3. Both did other activities as well, but gymnastics is what they never gave up.