Parents Nerves

[aman2win]

Wondering what advice others have to help with nerves before meets. My daughter is 9 and a level 7 gymnast and really starting to stress for her 1st meet. Not sure if it is worse this year b/c of harder skills, lack of maturity to handle nerves or lack of other team members (only 2 competing at her level). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[bogwoppit]

Nerves are very normal.

I have found helping my girls make some realistic goals for each meet has really taken the pressure off, and helped them focus on other things. They aim for things they they are in control of, not scores, judging or placements. They make a goal for each apparatus, such as stcking the flyaway on bars, landing the full turn on beam etc.

We also plan what we will do after the meet to celebrate, we do this no matter what happens. Ice cream is our thing and I have been amazed how it eases the pain of a rough meet.

Do her coaches know she is stressing? If not, do let them know, a good coach will be able to help her chill a bit.

Welcome to the Chalkbucket, you will find lots of supportive patents here.

 

[hakunamatata]

Bog's ideas a great. Adding on to that, the most important thing I can tell you is just to be the supportive parent, the cheerleader, the number one fan type of deal. I have seen some girls' parents coaching them before the meet ("You had better keep those legs straight on vault") and that really makes a lot of gymnasts more nervous than they have to be. Sitting down with your daughter and making realistic goals is a great thing to do, but let HER come up with the goals; then your job is simply to say, "that's a great goal," and to support them all the way through. Unfortunately there's not a lot more you can do than that. Nerves are pretty normal. I'd assume that her nerves will die down a little bit after this first meet, though. The jump from 6 to 7 is a little scary at first, but she'll get into the swing of things when she has one under her belt. Good luck!

 

[cher062]

Sooooo Normal!!

My DD is L7 and is 13 and she still gets nervous before every meet. Once she gets going she is fine but the drive over she talks the whole way there. Thats what she does when she gets nervous or excited. I have to listen to the "Oh I hope I don't fall off beam", "I hope my layout is high enough" etc. We just reassure her and try to distract her with conversation about other things. We find if we feed into her worries she is alot less nervous. I find that the ages 9 - 11 is when they discover the "fear factor" and become very nervous. When they older they still get nervous but seem to handle it alot better.

 

[nettyinpa]

I'm going to tag on to this post. My dd has her first level 7 meet next weekend. And, it's a home meet. She's the same age as your dd. And she's coming off an injury. She was out for over 8 weeks with no running, no tumbling, no dismounts. So you can just imagine the number of skills she's lost since then and still has yet to get them back. She's hit a wall and I'm worried about her. I want to thank Bog for putting it into perspective. I told her to just go out there and do her best, don't even worry about the scores. But I know her, she's very hard on herself and wants nothing more than to please everyone. They contemplated having her compete Level 6 but she's determined to do 7. So, I will tell her what Bog said, set goals for the day, even if it's just one. If she gets it, then it was a good day.

 

[Swiftli]

Parent of a 9yr old LvL 7 here as well and we are going through the identical thing. Nerves, fears, balks on skills. I am resigning to the fact it is the age. She is coming to realize that she could get hurt whereas before it was just go go go.

She is in her competition season as well and first meet...well...wasn't so pretty but each day she is moving a small step forward so I am trying to get her to focus on that. Hard feet though when she is a perfectionist.

Also, I think we as parents play a large roll in how gymnasts deal with pre-meet jitters. If they see us worry, or we are questioning things, or being overbearing in our loving gym mom way, then it only makes things worse. My advice is to relax and have fun before the meet. Don't even discuss it. If she sees you calm, cool, confident then she can feed off your positive energy

Hang in there.

 

[Megley]

My dd is also a 9yo Level 7 and just had her first meet a couple of weeks ago. I think all you can do is to tell her just to do her best and have fun and it will be okay no matter what happens. She will survive and it will only get better! Good luck!