F
froggiemom
Hello all, I am new here and was hoping I could get an expert opinion or two. I am not a gymnast and don't know much about the sport at all, but my 5 year old takes a recreational class and loves it! Today on the high bar, though, she scared the living daylights out of me! Her instructor was having one child at a time hang on the high bar, and then she was actively helping each child do "skin the cat". When it was my daughter's turn she lifted her up, said "go ahead" and then stood next to her with her arms by her sides and watched my daughter do it herself. My daughter is not that strong. She did do skin-the-cat, but struggled the whole way around. She was 8 (9?) feet up in the air and had she fallen when upside down there were no arms out to catch her! I asked the other parents if I thought that looked scary, maybe I was just overreacting. One father said to me "that freaked me right out and she's not even my kid". I then asked the coach, politely, if she could spot my child with outstreched arms the next time, as she had done with all the other kids. The coach said it wasn't necessary because my daughter is so strong. I said that the whole thing looked scary to me and she got very defensive, saying that "I feel like you are judging me, I know how to spot". Her argument was that if my daughter's hands had slipped she was ready to catch her (didn't look that way to me). Bear in mind that my daughter is 5 and has not had a high level of training. Is it at all reasonable that a "spot" for a 5 year old spinning around on a high bar should consist of nothing but a coach standing there with no outstretched hands? Any opinions would be most appreciated.