Hi all. Some of you may remember that I was in a dilemma over whether to change my daughter's gym and on the advice of you great people, I did! Thank you to all those who replied and offered advice as it really helped!
On to the question -- is it normal to find the transition from one gym to another difficult? My daughter (just 7) found her first class with new gym very overwhelming. It was three hours in length when she is used to 1.5 hour practises -- 2 tops and she ended up having a mini melt down in the last half hour. That has never happened in gym training before so I was a little shocked! Talking with her and her new coach at the end of training, it turns out she felt overwhelmed by the diffences between the two gyms -- different/more intense conditioning drills, skills taught slightly differently, some skills introduced that she's not previously worked on and so on. Apparently she suddenly burst into tears and the response to why she gave the coach was 'it feels strange - everything is different.' Coach talked with her about how that's normal and Millie explained that she felt silly being the only one feeling like she didn't know what she was doing. Coach pointed out that the girls had been working these skills about 4 weeks now and that they were brand new to her and that in a few weeks she'll know them too. She left a little happier in the end. Coach told me that as far as her gymnastics skills went she had done exactly as expected for her stage (only in development) no more and no less and that despite being overwhelmed by differences, she had actually been picking up the new things. She said she had gotten on with the other girls like a house on fire. She then said to give it two weeks to see how she settles in and offered me to collect daughter an hour early to see if that helps as she had seemed tired in the last hour --- my daughter said no way to that and that she wanted to stay to the end! Although a little emotional on the drive home, she soon wanted to show me the new conditioning drills she had been doing and seemed happy -- she wants to go back. I'm just hoping the outburst won't have put her in a bad light on her first day!
Do you think this sounds normal for a first class with new team? Positive? Will the mini meltdown likely put a question mark against whether to allow her to join their development group?
On to the question -- is it normal to find the transition from one gym to another difficult? My daughter (just 7) found her first class with new gym very overwhelming. It was three hours in length when she is used to 1.5 hour practises -- 2 tops and she ended up having a mini melt down in the last half hour. That has never happened in gym training before so I was a little shocked! Talking with her and her new coach at the end of training, it turns out she felt overwhelmed by the diffences between the two gyms -- different/more intense conditioning drills, skills taught slightly differently, some skills introduced that she's not previously worked on and so on. Apparently she suddenly burst into tears and the response to why she gave the coach was 'it feels strange - everything is different.' Coach talked with her about how that's normal and Millie explained that she felt silly being the only one feeling like she didn't know what she was doing. Coach pointed out that the girls had been working these skills about 4 weeks now and that they were brand new to her and that in a few weeks she'll know them too. She left a little happier in the end. Coach told me that as far as her gymnastics skills went she had done exactly as expected for her stage (only in development) no more and no less and that despite being overwhelmed by differences, she had actually been picking up the new things. She said she had gotten on with the other girls like a house on fire. She then said to give it two weeks to see how she settles in and offered me to collect daughter an hour early to see if that helps as she had seemed tired in the last hour --- my daughter said no way to that and that she wanted to stay to the end! Although a little emotional on the drive home, she soon wanted to show me the new conditioning drills she had been doing and seemed happy -- she wants to go back. I'm just hoping the outburst won't have put her in a bad light on her first day!
Do you think this sounds normal for a first class with new team? Positive? Will the mini meltdown likely put a question mark against whether to allow her to join their development group?