WAG Catastrophically bad meet.

[gymnastflip]

To cry, and she is a professional elite!
I think your daughter will learn to handle these situations. When she has a couple more dozen meets under her belt she will be able to make a mistake and simply forget about it.

 

[gymnastflip]

(Sorry it wouldn't let me write it all in one post)

 

[wallinbl]

I've obviously screwed something up as a mom

Hardly. This is just another chance to be a mom, that complicated, difficult mix of compassion and love and correction and guidance.

 

[mOm2gymnast<3]

aww don't be too hard on yourself OP. As a mom, just be there for your daughter. They are just kids and meltdowns sometimes do happen. Emotions go high rocket, which as parents we cannot control all the time. There are more meets in the future that she can do and really just do her best and have fun. Hang in there.

 

[Aussie_coach]

In reality it is just one meet. It was one day in her whole gymnastics life, in a few years you will probably both look back on this day and laugh.

If this is Uncharacteristic for her, then don't worry about it. It has never happened before has it? It probably won't ever happen again.

 

[GYM0M]

I just don't know where the heck I might have taught her that a public place is the right moment to throw a tantrum.....I've obviously screwed something up as a mom

(Hugs)

 

[Natalia]

First of all,a huge thanks to everyone!Glad this place exists.

I think I didn't quiet explain myself in my first post.
My kid was actualy "the spare tire"on the team.

2 girls are 10 years old and they are very solid competitors.
1 girl is the same age as DD,and is actually ahead of my kid,her BHS-Back tuck was competition ready so was her more difficult vault.

My kid is still a work in progress on these skills.She is solid on the lower level of difficulty.

So the idea was letting the other 9 year old compete her harder skills which are good but should she fall there would be my kid with a lower start value but better execution to balance out a poorer execcution score from the other gymmie.

My kid was angry that she couldn't chuck her skills on the beam or risk her neck on the vault.It was a bit of a "me want!Me want to be BIG gymnast!Me not want to be little team mascot!" type reaction !

 

[catou]

I have to admit, I was a crying, tantruming gymnast... I would get so angry at myself when I missed. Now I realize I just didn't know how to deal with stress. My parents never accepted that behaviour and coaches would just let me alone, so I would calm down. Generally, the rest of the meet would be affected by my bad temper.

Yes, learning to laugh about it helped... I finally became able to laugh about a missed kip during a meet at a time where I was able to do a full as my bar dismount dismount.

Natalia, I also had a meet where I couldn't do the big skills and was angry because of that... The Me want to be BIG gymnast in me was 12 or 13 at the time

 

[iwannacoach]

This Sunday we had a team meet,they are 4 girls on the team,the best three sores are taken into account,My kid was the "safety net",basicaly she was to do lower level skills,expected to do them well,and rescue the day should any of the other girls miss a harder skill.

This is very simple to understand:

The coach asked for lower level meet from your dear daughter, and got what she asked for. So what if your daughter delivered upon the request in a way that astonished the coach. There's one thing I've never done and never will, and that's to ask a child to leave their heart and soul at the door when they come to compete.

Be careful for what you wish....... Because a nine year old just may grant it.

 

[Natalia]

This is very simple to understand:

The coach asked for lower level meet from your dear daughter, and got what she asked for. So what if your daughter delivered upon the request in a way that astonished the coach. There's one thing I've never done and never will, and that's to ask a child to leave their heart and soul at the door when they come to compete.

Be careful for what you wish....... Because a nine year old just may grant it.

There is so much I want to say.... but first, iwannacoach,I love you.

I think my kid is going through a culture shock,I know that I'm having a very hard time adapting to the french way of viewing the world.I'm french but I have lived away from my country for 20 years,been back here fo the past two years.

I beleive that if you take care of every individual ,society will come closer to reaching its full potential.

In France there's more of an inclination to believe that every individual must be at the service of the "institution".The whole is more important then the individual parts.

I'm trying very hard to bend,and appreciate the advantages that my country has to offer....but its HARD.

When a situation such as the one regarding my DD and gymnastics presents itself,I'm questioning my values.

Yes team is important,but first and formost there is my fiesty determined fearless kid that's getting broken down by a society that is so foreign to her,and also more foreign to MY individual values.

Soooo,in my hearts of hearts I agree with my oder DD,who told her little sister :"When you finished you should have blown your coach a Kiss and left"

I just don't think that an emotional response is ever the right one.But this whole situation brings so many self doubts to the surface.

Ps :sorry for the typos,kid spilt salt on the keyboard and some letters don't respond so well.Chalckbucket times out befor I can fix them

 

[iwannacoach]

There is so much I want to say.... but first, iwannacoach,I love you.

I couldn't be more pleased, thanks!

Yes team is important...... I just don't think that an emotional response is ever the right one.

I respect that you honor the team concept, but no matter how talented or advance a nine year old may be, it is wrong to ask 0ne to fall on her own altruistic sword for the benefit of the team. The team concept for kids that young should be to support each other in training and to keep each other's spirits high at meets.

I'd like to tell the coach that she's miscalculated the outcome of framing a child as a back with easier skills. I think it sends a message, no matter how intended, that "Your only value is to put up a lower score so the rest of the girls can risk a fall while trying to shine." Sure, winning a team comp in a centralized system may have brought some good fortune to the coach's program, and by extension to your daughter. I'd say those fortunes are best left to come eventually and benefit more complete kids who will become more complete gymnasts.

Sometimes the shortest path to a destination is less traveled for good reason.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

how normal.

 

[Frase]

I've always thought gymnastics a strange sport in that the girls that you train with everyday, who keep each other 'up', who mop up each others tears and persuade each other to get up and try again are the same girls you want to beat at each competition.

I remember watching dd having a fall off beam at a competition and her teammate trying to to give her a high 5 when she finished which she completely ignored.

What was funny was was that after the red mist had cleared they each admitted that they all wanted each other to fall! How many sports are there when you want your best friends to fall off a head high apparatus?

 

[iwannacoach]

I remember watching dd having a fall off beam at a competition and her teammate trying to to give her a high 5 when she finished which she completely ignored......

........ they all wanted each other to fall!

Oh......... you thought the offer of the high five was in appreciation of a fine effort..... maybe it was, and then again......

I doubt that good team mate want each other to fall, but they can recognize an opportunity when they one falling off the beam.

 

[Frase]

They were 8+9 at the time - I'd like to think they were a bit team spirited now but I couldn't couldn't guarantee it...

 

[Natalia]

In the words of my 9 year old:"If I were a team player I woud have chosen soccer"

 

[profmom]

With the little ones, simple Pavlovianism can work to build team spirit if that's what a coach wants. Last weekend, my son's L5 team was going crazy over every 11 anyone put up, because a high team score = PIZZA PARTY! One guy who'd only done this one bonus twice in the gym told his mom that he did it at the meet in part because he could hear every guy on his team screaming at him to get it and he knew they all wholeheartedly wanted him to hit. And he won the event. But these guys do seem to have internalized IWC's injunction that "The team concept for kids that young should be to support each other in training and to keep each other's spirits high at meets." It has to be difficult to coach athletes who are competing simultaneously as individuals and as a team, but it sounds like maybe your DD's coach erred too far on the side of the team concept.

 

[wallinbl]

You want your teammates to do well, it's just that you want yourself to do even better. But, wanting your teammates to be brought down below your level (fall, injury, etc) is the wrong way to look at it.

 

[LizzieLac]

You want your teammates to do well, it's just that you want yourself to do even better. But, wanting your teammates to be brought down below your level (fall, injury, etc) is the wrong way to look at it.

My DD always wants to beat her teamates, who she genuinely cares about and has fun with, but not because of a fall. She wants everyone to put up their best routine and then she beats them!

 

[gymmiemom1973]

We have individual meets and team meets.

This Sunday we had a team meet,they are 4 girls on the team,the best three sores are taken into account,My kid was the "safety net",basicaly she was to do lower level skills,expected to do them well,and rescue the day should any of the other girls miss a harder skill.

Well my kid was dissapointed,angry,fustrated...She went in and made a mess of cosmic proportions.I stopped counting her falls off the beam after the fith time.She missed her kip on the low bar!!This is a level 8 bar worker,bars being her strongest element.

The judges looked over to the coach with a" WTF ?look" on their faces.Man no words can desribe...

Afterwards the coach told me the 10 year old level 10 that she coahes did something very similar once but not twice,she learnt to keep control of her emotions.My kid has done it once,so no room to ever do anything like this again.

Another coach/judge spoke to my not so dear daughter and told her"stop trying to beat everyone else,do YOUR best ,there's a looong road ahead and you have a lot of time to do great things,don't sabotage your future"

I just don't know where the heck I might have taught her that a public place is the right moment to throw a tantrum.....I've obviously screwed something up as a mom

I'm so sorry to hear that your dd had to go through this. . My only question would be and it may not be even relevant to the situation but does your dd have any pressure put on her by her coach as the back up to perform? Or when she didn't get the desired outcome, did her coach visibly show her dissatisfaction or make it clear he was in anyway ashamed of her or annoyed. This has happened to my dd before and it is very hard to control your emotions in such a situation.