Ever since losing my daughter, who loved and competed in gymnastics, I have had a hard time watching the summer Olympics. But this year, I was excited to settle down and watch the winter games.
To be honest I had two differing responses: We don't have enough pressure on our youth already? We need to get them to believe they can "decide" to be an Olympian. Don't worry about all the time and work involved, if you decided you can do something, you can. AND What's the matter with our youth, they have to be coaxed into have a goal to work towards? We have to recruit them, instead of assuming they will want to achieve something great?
However, this mindset isn't really new (although the commercial is a new twist on it), with my time in the gymnastic world I witnessed the spike in new gymnasts every four years. (Ironically, another daughter has been figure skating for a couple of years, and we are expecting the Olympic spike this year.)
I've always wondered how much of this spike was from the children who saw a sport they might be interested in, and how much was a push from parents wanting an Olympic athlete.
So, all you Olympic hopeful parents, here's my confessions as a parent of an Olympic hopeful gymnasts:
1) It is really hard to not get sucked into the parent pride trap. When coaches begin telling you that your child is talented and could do well at competitions, it's hard to resist. Who doesn't want to see their child stand out among others? I'm sure my daughter loved competing, but she was recruited for the team in kindergarten. How much could she have decided? Let's face it: it was me.
2) Is all the time, money, and emotion worth it? I did not understand what this would really cost our family. I began working a part time job just to pay the thousands of dollars a year it cost to let my daughter compete. But money was just part of it. We gave up family time and Katie gave up free time. I have to admit I had this strange thrill of pride when Katie's "non-gym" friends would knock on the door to see if she could play, and I had to turn them away because she was "at gym" again. I'm sad to think of all the time she missed out just being a kid. There were times she had to skip activities because of what might happen. She was invited on a ski trip at the beginning of competition season. We had to say no, because if she got hurt skiing it would affect her gymnastics.
3) Both my daughter and I made great friends (and some nemeses). The competitive environment is difficult to maneuver. How do you hope your friend does her best, yet at the same time, you want to beat her? I found the girls do this better than the parents do. The athletes spend so much time together that they learn to care about each other. The parents, however, tend to get caught up in the "who's best" syndrome. You begin looking for excuses about why someone is better than your child (the coach likes her better, she has been doing it longer, she has a smaller build, etc). I made some mistakes, and made some enemies, but I'm glad I got to know the other moms. To this day, some of my best friends are other "gym moms" I met while my daughter participated in gymnastics.
4) I'm not sure I kept everything in perspective. When you are caught up in the middle of an activity that takes up 20 or more hours a week, you begin to get overly invested. Yes, she was talented. She was one of the best at the gym. She even did well in state competitions. But, looking at the big picture, the most we could truly hope for would be a college scholarship. (And let's be honest here, not many girls can keep competing that long because their bodies just don't hold up well to the abuse.) I needed to look at her gymnastics as a hobby, something she is good at and loves to do. Too often I tried to justify the time, money, and pain because she had talent. She could get a scholarship one day. I remember hearing a parent, who was just approached about her daughter joining the team, say, "Well, she's good at a lot of things, and we want her to experience as many of them as she can." The girl stayed in gymnastics, but did not join the team.
5) I learned to listen to my daughter and to allow her the opportunity to make decisions for her life. The all together hardest part of a competitive athlete's mom, is to know when to push and when to let up. We all have bad days or bad weeks, we all have times when we want to quit. How do you know when your child needs a break, needs to be pushed over the hump, or when it is time to call it quits? Boy, do I wish there was an answer to this question. It was hard for me to see my daughter give up gymnastics in 8th grade. She wanted to try dance, volleyball, and softball. It was the spring of her 8th grade year when she became ill and passed away. I then realized how important her self-awareness was. She knew it was time to try new things and she did it. I wonder how I would have felt if I had forced her to remain in gymnastics and never allowed her the opportunity to discover other talents, until it was too late.
No comments:
Post a Comment