I know that I will probably get a wide variety of opinions on this but I am wanting to find some parents that at least understand what I am going through. My daughter is an 11 year old repeating level 6 gymnast. She did not have a great year last season. She scored around a 34 to low 35 all around for all of the meets. So, her coach advised she repeat the level this year so that she could improve. We have had many changes since then. Her former coach had a baby and left the gym, the replacement coach had little experience coaching gymnastics so after only a month we left and went to a new very highly regarded gym (one that has many elite and collegiate gymnasts). My daughter loves her new gym and is have a great time there. Maybe she is having too much fun though. They have a very positive attitude and unlike her old coach, less extrensic pressure for perfection. They tell the girls what corrections to make, but it needs to be the individual gymnast that makes the corrections. Other girls are still thriving and scoring very high scores at meets, but my DD is actually doing worse than last year on two of the events, vault and floor. Her bar scores have improved by .3 overall and her beam by .5. My husband gave her an ultimatum. She needed to improve this year (not win, not score all 9's just simply improve) or he make her quit. We only have two meets for the season left and if she were to quit today she would be done he says. Part of me is very sad for DD, but the other part of me is wondering if DH is right. As an Optional gymnast we are going to have to invest over $7000 next year alone ($350 a month gym fees, $200 a month driving to and from gym since it is 30 minutes away, $500 choregraphy, $575 new leotard warm ups, and then we have not even added up the meet fees, travel, tape, pre-wrap etc. . . ) When I ask my daughter why she wants to stay in gymnastics she says, "I will miss my friends if I quit." I would think she needs to have a better motivation than that. Sigh. I know that parents sometimes grieve the loss of the sport too since we put so much time, money and effort into helping our little girls succeed in this. It is really hard.
Should I try to convince DH that our daughter needs more time and might improve as an optional gymnast? Should I just be thankful that we realize now that she is not improving and pull her out and save the hours of time and the money? Thanks for any insight.
Should I try to convince DH that our daughter needs more time and might improve as an optional gymnast? Should I just be thankful that we realize now that she is not improving and pull her out and save the hours of time and the money? Thanks for any insight.