Parents To retire or not to retire...

[tdoesgymnastics]

My Level 6, 8th grade daughter has recently sparked an interest in joining marching band next year. If she does decide to join, it would require her to quit gymnastics. While XCEL is a possibility, she wouldn't be able to fully commit to both gym and band.

She could either stay in gymnastics with the chance of getting as far as she can, or she could retire or quit, and join band. The plus of doing marching band, is that she could also do cross country and track. What is your guy's input on what we should do.

And no, we don't have a high school gymnastics team.

 

[tucktwisttumble]

If she wants to do band - let her.
As long as you, as a parent, can financially support her decision, that is really the only input you should have.

Let her do what makes her happy.

 

[John]

Have her make a pro and con list. Once age makes her educated decision support her.

 

[sce]

I will not say yes or no. She really has to choose. My 13yo dd went through this. Continue gym and be limited in what else she can do or quit gym to have more time to do musical theater and dance. She loved gym and theater for a long time, but theater started taking over her heart. So she quit gym and is now putting lots of time into theater and dance. BUT she had to make the decision herself and it was a tough one. She is ahppy though, she misses gym some but knows she made the choice and loves theater.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

"We"!!!!

Umm no, she. What does she want to do?
That is what should be done.

 

[sevenatenine2]

If you don't think she will do gymnastics until she graduates, encourage her to do marching band. Too many times I see kids sit out the first year of middle or high school because of gymnastics, and then quit gymnastics and are effectively too far behind to join a sports or arts team at that point.

 

[tdoesgymnastics]

Thank you for your responses. I know that in the end, it is up to her. She's just been torn on what she should do and I thought I'd ask for advice. I say "We" because gymnastics has definitely changed our (as in our family's) lifestyle and retiring would cause an impact on our routine. Just wanted to clear things up... and also, I like the pro/con list suggested by John.

 

[twinmomma]

Thank you for your responses. I know that in the end, it is up to her. She's just been torn on what she should do and I thought I'd ask for advice. I say "We" because gymnastics has definitely changed our (as in our family's) lifestyle and retiring would cause an impact on our routine. Just wanted to clear things up... and also, I like the pro/con list suggested by John.

This exactly. It is a WE discussion. Yes it's her sport but every decision affects the family. It's important for kids to understand this now so they don't become selfish and self centered later when making decisions in their adult family. My wife can't just decide to sign up for an adult sports league without considering how the time and money may affect the family. If you instill in a kid that their sport is SOLELY theirs, then you create a bad pattern of selfish decision making.

 

[John]

Thank you for your responses. I know that in the end, it is up to her. She's just been torn on what she should do and I thought I'd ask for advice. I say "We" because gymnastics has definitely changed our (as in our family's) lifestyle and retiring would cause an impact on our routine. Just wanted to clear things up... and also, I like the pro/con list suggested by John.

Thanks Mine is 10 and has trouble with even little decisions. So a pro con list is something I suggested and she has adopted and does for herself. Sometimes I get the list in a text message can with what do you think dad. When this happens I suggest she weighs each response with a number of Importance and add the numbers. Highest number wins.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

This exactly. It is a WE discussion. Yes it's her sport but every decision affects the family. It's important for kids to understand this now so they don't become selfish and self centered later when making decisions in their adult family. My wife can't just decide to sign up for an adult sports league without considering how the time and money may affect the family. If you instill in a kid that their sport is SOLELY theirs, then you create a bad pattern of selfish decision making.

If my husband was Derek Jeter. His retirement would be completely up to him................ What his next step would be, would be something we discussed as to how it would affect the family. But his retirement, completely up to him.

There is a difference between starting something that incurs an expense and a heavy investment in the time of the family.
And being done with something that if you are not focused and ready to be all in could get you really injured.

My husband had a job he hated, he interviewed at many places. Had offers he turned down. And has taken one he feels is a good fit. All these jobs were the same commute time and hours. Roughly the same salary. His choice as to which offer he took was completely up to him. He is the one who has to go there every day. I did say the one in Maryland was not an option if he expected us all to move. And if he really wanted that job and the money was right we would find a way to make it work. Taking care of one's self is not the same as being selfish. Going out a purchasing mega bucks golf clubs without a chat, that would be selfish. That doesn't happen in our house.

My kid wants to be done with gym. "We" are all done. Now as her parent, we would discuss what she will be filling the hours with. But she decides she is done, so be it. Again, completely different then if she wanted to up her hours or head to a gym that would add hours to our week. Completely different. But be done with gym. That puts money back in our pockets and hours into our week. That doesn't impact us at all, what she would ultimately fill her time with might. But not quitting.

 

[sevenatenine2]

If my husband was Derek Jeter. His retirement would be completely up to him................ What his next step would be, would be something we discussed as to how it would affect the family. But his retirement, completely up to him.

There is a difference between starting something that incurs an expense and a heavy investment in the time of the family.
And being done with something that if you are not focused and ready to be all in could get you really injured.

My husband had a job he hated, he interviewed at many places. Had offers he turned down. And has taken one he feels is a good fit. All these jobs were the same commute time and hours. Roughly the same salary. His choice as to which offer he took was completely up to him. He is the one who has to go there every day. I did say the one in Maryland was not an option if he expected us all to move. And if he really wanted that job and the money was right we would find a way to make it work. Taking care of one's self is not the same as being selfish. Going out a purchasing mega bucks golf clubs without a chat, that would be selfish. That doesn't happen in our house.

My kid wants to be done with gym. "We" are all done. Now as her parent, we would discuss what she will be filling the hours with. But she decides she is done, so be it. Again, completely different then if she wanted to up her hours or head to a gym that would add hours to our week. Completely different. But be done with gym. That puts money back in our pockets and hours into our week. That doesn't impact us at all, what she would ultimately fill her time with might. But not quitting.

I am glad you have a found a balance that works for your family. I don't think the OP was saying WE because she has an unhealthy interest in her daughter's gymnastics, but because the daughter was at a bit of a standstill and the mother was wondering how the family (we) should best guide her through that. I don't believe this is your intention, but the paragraph above reads a little like you're chastising the OP for using language or even making decisions in her family differently than you do in your's, and I would hate for someone to come here looking for support and feel like they were scolded, instead.

 

[sce]

The only we I see in the original pist was the sentence about highschool gymnastics. I went back to re-read it based on the ensuing conversation. That in no way made me feel like you were too involved in your child’s sport. It just told me that in your area there is no high school gymnastics. I think the tricky part with the decision to quit, is that if she feels it was made for her she may regret it. That is why I did not answer the poll. For my dd’s decision, I acknowledged that she had a dilemma, wanting to do more theater but that meant missing gymnastics. As we talked more I observed that it sounded like she did not want to do gymnastics anymore. But that I could be hearing her incorrectly. I then encouraged her to put some time into thinking about it. I found d not bring it up again and just continued taking her to gym as shways. A few days later she told me that she wanted to quit gym, when she would stop and what else she wanted to do,

 

[sce]

Oh wait, I looked again and saw the we. I hear what else you have said about it though. You should encourage her to look at the options she has and decide what she wants most. She should make the decision. I really would not tell her the results of the poll you created.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

I am glad you have a found a balance that works for your family. I don't think the OP was saying WE because she has an unhealthy interest in her daughter's gymnastics, but because the daughter was at a bit of a standstill and the mother was wondering how the family (we) should best guide her through that. I don't believe this is your intention, but the paragraph above reads a little like you're chastising the OP for using language or even making decisions in her family differently than you do in your's, and I would hate for someone to come here looking for support and feel like they were scolded, instead.

You are correct not my intention. But I do think we as parents need to be clear when it comes to our kids that we are not acting selfishly.
And be clear that it is not about us.

As someone up thread brought up selfishness, And this is not necessarily about anyone on this thread. There are many selfish parents out there. Way to invested in what the child is doing, not for the child's sake but for the parents sake.

I have also, IRL, seen the opposite. Parents who have the time to invest in activities for the child and not doing so because they don't want to drive and have to put in the time. Also a form of selfishness.

So my comments were strictly for the purpose of making sure the focus was where it should be. On the child. Nothing more or less. Not good or bad, just for thought.

 

[Kcanflip]

If you don't think she will do gymnastics until she graduates, encourage her to do marching band. Too many times I see kids sit out the first year of middle or high school because of gymnastics, and then quit gymnastics and are effectively too far behind to join a sports or arts team at that point.

This is so true. I have a 9th grader, struggling through one last year of gym (wrist issues). She will continue through May but next year as a Sophmore she will not have an activity. She will not be able to participate in any school sports as just too far behind in a very competitive district and really just not interested. Her twin brother does marching band and I think she is seeing just how much fun he is having doing it...basically he is fully immersed in the high-school experience and social aspect of such, and it is tough. If it were me, I would encourage her to make the decision herself, but definitely bring up the scenario of what life would look like from a high-school perspective with both choices, playing it out through end of high-school.

PS: Marching band is awesome. Had no clue this world even existed and makes even me regret quitting my musical instrument before high-school. Seriously my new addiction. I'm a marching band junkie now!

 

[profmom]

The nice thing about marching band is that if they play one of the instruments, they can just join up. There is no "in age" or "too late." My son thought about it this year but chose not to add it to GYM!, jazz band, and Model UN.