Should I Allow/Encourage My Little Boy To Compete In Gymnastics?

Parent Cafe
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<p>My son took tap classes for at least 6 years and loved it. It was great for his coordination and muscle tone. The teacher really liked having some boys to work with. There were always other boys in the class, so that helped. Savion Glover is the most amazing tapper–find some footage of him. Very powerful stuff. The tapping was never a big time or money commitment. Lessons once a week, new shoes once a year and he got a lot out of it.</p>

<p>I agree with others on the gymnastics–follow his lead and let him quit if he wants to, as long as he’s doing some physical activity. For now, it sounds as if he rather enjoys it, but prefers dancing. As time goes on, if he increases his dance focus, some of the other activities will probably drop away naturally. He’s at a great age to try all kinds of things. His passions will emerge with time.</p>

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<p>along the lines of involvement in the community- my younger Ds school had swing& tap dance as part of curriculum. ( in elementary)
Tap was taught in 3rd and 4th grade & she loved it- it has become very popular with shows like [url=<a href=“http://www.stomponline.com/STOMP[/url]”>http://www.stomponline.com/STOMP&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In 5th & 6th grade- swing dance ( especially in 5th) was an important part of their study of American history .
This is a K-12 school and they have shows every year- where the classes get to show what they are working on.
(One girl who went through 12th grade here, loved dance so much, that she went on to NYU to study it- however NYU refused to increase aid, & when her single mom passed, she had to drop out, but don’t feel bad for her she is touring with Savion Glover)</p>

<p>Im just thinking that if you took the energy and time that went into schlepping him around to his lessons and put it toward at least investigating a comparable program at school instead- you might be pleasantly surprised :)</p>

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<p>Boys competitve gymnastics and girls competitive gymnastics are VERY different. Girls team is more intense, more hours, much more pressure to learn high level skills as early as possible. Boys team, especially the early levels, is very low-key. At our gym, the boys begin competing at level 4 (some gyms start at level 5). While it is competitive team, it’s very “warm & fuzzy” meant to develop (hopefully) a love for the sport. My son was bored in classes, but really enjoyed the team. It really helped improved his strength & flexibilty. He loved that he could “flip”! He also did dance and loved that he could put his gymnastics skills into his hip hip solo. </p>

<p>As the skills become more difficult, it become clear that gymnastics was not his passion, since it was “too much work & not fun anymore” He quit last year at age 12. He still loves to show-off his skills, especially tumbling. I feel that the strength, flexibilty and confidence gymnastics gave him really has helped him excel in his current sport, wrestling, as well as other aspects of his life. As long as your son is enjoying gymnastics, let him continue. He may even like team more than classes.</p>

<p>I agree with everything Princedog has posted, this has been our experience as well. The vast majority of gyms do not make money from team, only classes. My daughter is also a gymnast, it is her passion. She will be doing college gymnastics next year. She also is a competitive dancer (talk about a managing a CRAZY schedule). Gymnastics and dance definitely compliment each other. Her dance studio has had a few boys over the years, several were current/former gymnasts.</p>

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<p>I only have a minute, but wanted to quickly note that there doesn’t seem to be flack from people about the tap so much, it is the ballet. The people in my home have watched Billy Elliot, we are familiar with these great male dancers. I think that I mentioned earlier, but he developed the interest in dance after watching Michael Flatley in Riverdance. Even if my son decides to just stick with tap down the road, from what I’ve read, ballet is a good idea (if not downright necessary) to assist with the form of any dancer, martial artist, football player, etc… So I figured "start him young, while he’s willing). </p>

<p>The thing is that our household has educated itself, but there are going to be unavoidable ignoramuses. I have pointed out all of the above. Additionally, there are only about 4 major studios in the area, and 3 of them are husband/wife owned! </p>

<p>I went to the fitness center where we are members and that is actually not in my neighborhood. When I told a male trainer (military guy) there that I had enrolled my son in dance, he blatantly said “Why would you do that to your son?” I made a point that football players take it, and he said “We don’t call it ballet, we call it ‘pyrometrics’”. Oh, ok, so we’ll just call it something else then to preserve masculine ego…</p>

<p>My teenaged niece (not the greatest behaved in any situation) came over for dinner, and he happily showed her his shoes and went to put them on to dance, and when his back was turned, she said “Why do you have him in dance?” with a sneer, and I said “I know what you are about to say, and don’t. He’s a little 8 year old boy who has found something that he enjoys. Don’t take that joy from him.” She did shut up immediately. </p>

<p>My mother told me that when she told my brother on the phone, he made comments to her when he heard about the ballet. He was at my house recently, and he does not know that I am aware. He had the decency to sound interested when my son told him and put his shoes on and tapped around. But when my son was out of the area, I did give a little speech on my perspective on boys not being limited in sports. He didn’t say anything derogatory, he does respect me alot and would not likely hurt my feelings to my face, but it does bother me that he said things behind my back.</p>

<p>But you know what, when I was growing up, it wasn’t “appropriate” for a girl to do the things that I did either. I competed in “boy’s sports”, went to a high school that was perceived as “for boys” because it was the best in the area, and ultimately went into professions that are “male dominated” (the whole time my grandmother was saying “well maybe you’ll meet a nice man there”).</p>

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<p>Calmom, I think the contract idea is great. Actually, he is supposed to sign a contract with the studio to be in the performance, and he’s been asking when I’m mailing it.</p>

<p>My school district seems very active in music and theater, and my daughter has been active in all of these things. For years, my son has watched his sister in band, chorus, and plays, and he has always asked when he’ll be old enough. </p>

<p>Interestingly, there are a lot of males in the school chorus, which I attribute to the religion that predominates in the neighborhood. So I don’t think he will get any flack for being in that, although in the neighborhood where my husband and I were raised (and our family) would see this as “unmasculine”. </p>

<p>We are not sure what will happen with band. We’ve always assumed that he would play. When he was really young, he thought that the bassoon looked interesting (probably because it was the only one). But lately he has been interested in the violin, and our school does not have any string intruments and they’ve made it pretty clear that the district will not pay to add a teacher who can teach them for the band. While I could send him to Suzuki lessons, he would likely miss out on school band. Additionally, with all of these other activities and a child entering college, I can’t afford violin lessons at this time. I’ve been sorely tempted to get books/videos and try to teach myself so that I can teach him, but it does not sound doable from what I’ve read on the internet. So when he becomes old enough for band/in-school music next year, I am inclined towards encouraging him to pick some instrument from what the school teaches just so that he can at least begin his musical training.</p>

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<p>Gosh I don’t know how anyone can say anything about the ‘vast majority’ of gyms based on their individual experiences at their own gym. </p>

<p>Re: fee structure…at OUR gym (not sure about the vast majority), the monthly fees for the lower level teams (the first step after classes) are, on a per diem basis, identical to classes…BUT because you have made the leap from class to team, your kid is now in the gym 3-5 days a week rather than once a week. Getting a kid to move out of once a week classes and on to a 3-5 day a week team is a huge bump in revenue.</p>

<p>Also, at our gym, which has a very competitive cheer program, cheerleading is not part of the ‘classes’; rather it is handled just as team gymnastics is handled with regard to fee structure and billing. When ldgirl participated, the gym fielded about 20 competitive teams of 18-30 cheerleaders and attended about 10-15 competitions each season, culminating in NCA Nationals in Dallas. </p>

<p>I do think we are talking about two different things… big gym vs. little gym. In fact, just checked the latest stats on our gym and they now have over 70,000 square feet of practice area and about 4000 students in the classes and on teams. I guess being ‘led down a path’ is one of the hazards of a big gym that is more than offset by the fact these gyms do attract the very best coaches from around the world and do offer cutting edge facilities. And truthfully, as often as such a gym successfully develops an elite athlete, they inherit them through coaching connections.</p>

<p>Again, my point is…if a parent puts their kid in a program at a gym similar to what I describe, they should consider seriously how that gym became so successful.</p>

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<p>fees is a big reason why after paying for older D to take gymnastics and modern dance classes,- then ballet with Pacific Northwest Ballet- for a few years, vocal instruction with Northwest girls choir for several years-
I was very happy for her to switch her after school activity to volunteering at the zoo & for her sister to participate in community rec teams rather than select.</p>

<p>Some of the fees really added up- and gymnastics was one of them that struck me as high for the per hour basis.
My younger D, not only had great instruction on her rec teams, but she has had the same girls and the same coach for 10 years- its worthwhile trying to find that experience & continuity I think.</p>

<p>( some universities offer gymnastics and similar classes for kids- might be worth looking for)</p>

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<p>I think it’s more like I can’t say anything about one individual gym based on my experience with the vast majority of competitive gymnastics - from more than one angle. It’s generally accepted in the gymnastics community that class is the moneymaker and in fact the opposite phenomenon is pretty well documented - kids who want to and could compete often get stuck in classes due to space constraints and because class programs are more profitable. </p>

<p>I’m not trying to argue about what happens at your gym. What I am saying it’s unlikely a gym will push a child without the skills onto BOYS competitive. There’s no point, and many of these big gyms have a “reputation” to uphold that makes them particularly sensitive to the quality of their team. They just have more kids to cull the best ones from. Teams are often funded largely by booster clubs that have 501(c)3 status. Money has to be carefully handled and distributed to avoid running afoul of NCAA regs that don’t allow amateur athletes to accept money. </p>

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<p>I’m not sure exactly what you mean. Almost every gym I’ve encountered charges monthly tuition. Based on many threads on gymnastics boards, monthly team tuition at competitive gyms in the US ranges from about $250-$500 per month, depending on the area of the country and the number of hours per week. I haven’t encountered any gym that charges the same amount per hour regardless of the amount of hours. Per month for weekly classes would be close to $15 per hour at my old gym. At the 25 hours a week I did last summer, that would be over $300 a week and over a $1000 per month…but we paid less than $300 a month. That was less per hour for the gym to maintain MUCH more highly skilled staff (a coach that worked with the National Team in another country) and provide benefits for that highly skilled staff, as opposed to the people paying more per hour for much less highly skilled staff like, well, me. This IS the case at the vast majority of gyms, and I am pretty secure in that assessment. The owners are pretty well off, don’t get me wrong. But they could care less about competitive. They’ve ended both the boys team totally and the girls optional without much thought, and it didn’t make a difference. The revenue comes from very large and successful class programs.</p>

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<p>removed my own post…persisting is unfair redirection of this thread.</p>

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<p>my Ds were both in gymnastics when they were younger, and it was fun, well for awhile</p>

<p>eventually, too much “competition” among the girls- who got stars that week for their belts, and the day I heard two ten year old girls talking about their weight, and the coaches telling another she was too fat (NOT) we quit</p>

<p>I saw where it was going, and it wasn’t pretty</p>

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<p>Wow, Citygirlsmom, it is too bad that wholesome and fun things can be ruined for kids by things like this.</p>

<p>When I take my son to gymnastics, I can see that there are the “social climbers” there. The funny thing is that although my career choices give me automatic “status” just by nature of my degree and profession, I am not interested in social climbing nor superficial “make nice” types of things. It’s one good reason why I work for myself rather than someone else. I cannot stand office politics. Nor would I be able to stand “parent politics”. </p>

<p>One thing that concerns me is that my son does not seem to care to play with or be nice to other children in general. The other day he went to a pool and refused to play with a little boy there, preferring to play ball with my husband. My husband actually tried to encourage him to play with the other boy, but he wouldn’t. The other little boy said “I don’t know why he won’t play with me”. </p>

<p>At gymnastics, I’ve seen boys call my son a “nickname”, and my son gets made and says that it is not his name. He generally does not return a “goodbye” to these children either.</p>

<p>I talked to him tonight about his attitude would not be good in competitive gymnastics because it involves teamwork. For that matter, most sports do. I told him that he is always complaining that he wants attention (does this daily no matter how much time we give him, it’s never enough). I said that he needs to make friends with other kids so that he will have playmates and not need so much attention from us. He said that he doesn’t want to play with kids, he wants to play with us. I don’t know what to make of this.</p>

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<p>whatapainthisis- just a thought on his wanting attention from you. My youngest is the same way. She would complain she did not get any attention. She got tons. After talking with a therapist we got the suggestion of not really changing the amount of attention she got but changing the way we talked with her.
For example- My daughter loves to go to the market. Strange but she loves it. So many times we would stop on the way home from school. Instead of just saying we need to stop I would say Let’s go to the market, I like it when we get to do it together. My husband and D would go down and check the waves each weekend morning. Instead of just going He started telling her that that was their time together and making it about the two of them. We didn’t give her more attention but she felt like she was getting more.
We still have the issue of her wanting to be the center but it is much better then it used to be.
The most amazing switch was how good she felt when I told my older D when she called in the car that I would call her back later since I was driving with her sister. My younger D felt like I was considerate of her feelings. Now at times when I need to be on the phone I can get my younger D to understand that it is not all about her and sometimes I need to focus elsewhere.
She also is more aware of what she is doing. She said the other day that we sort of can’t wait for her brother to go back to college since she misses being an only child.</p>

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<p>not sure if this has been addressed, but what about martial arts? it is diciplined, controlled, good for the self esteem, balanced, great phyiscally, etc, and generally, size, etc doesn’t matter at ALL, small and sprite can be a Good thing, and the lessons learned are wonderful</p>

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<p>and it IS about doing things in a group, and helping each other, but much is about advamcing yourself</p>

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<p>martial arts is a great idea.
Graceful- focused- disciplined.
& size doesn’t matter.</p>

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<p>I also just found out about this program-
[Seeds</a> of Compassion](<a href=“seedsofcompassion.net”>http://www.seedsofcompassion.net/)
[Roots</a> of Empathy – Welcome](<a href=“http://www.rootsofempathy.org/]Roots”>http://www.rootsofempathy.org/),
His holiness the Dalai Lama will be in Seattle this spring to participate.</p>

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<p>My concern at this time about martial arts is:</p>

<p>a)He’d get hit. They do spar. I am concerned about him being hit in the chest.</p>

<p>b)The idea of hitting at all, the promotion of violence. I understand that there are the mental aspects, but the bottom line is that martial arts’ purpose is to teach fighting skills. </p>

<p>c) At 8 years old, he still has to be told not to whack his sister (who is a senior in hs). In the past, someone bought him a foam dart gun and he shot at me with it. He also has had play swords that have been taken away because he doesn’t understand to be gentle. He does not always do what he is told without an argument. If he is upset, he will tell my husband, myself, and my daughter that he hates us. I am afraid that if we train him in martial arts, he’ll use it on us!</p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong, he is generally a gentle, loving child. In many ways, still like a baby. It’s like he’s being dragged out of infancy kicking and screaming. Everything was a task-- feeding, toilet training, getting him into his own bed. He still wants to climb onto my lap and be held, he wants to be tucked in at night, and if we’d let him he’d still sleep in our bed. He will not get out of his loft bed in the morning unless I come in there and kind of help him down/hold him on the way down. In many ways, he is like an only child because his sister is so much older that she is almost a 3rd parent. I also think that because he was a fragile baby/toddler, that he has “extended” his babyhood and immaturity. He is not happy that his sister is going to college. (another thread on that).</p>

<p>That all being said, he is in the appropriate grade, and if his putting these 3d puzzles together for ages 12+ is any indication, he is at least intellectually on par for his age, if not well ahead.</p>

<p>He is the most loving child, but he has always been a very stubborn little boy. I can laugh about this now, but you wouldn’t believe how he was as an infant. I breastfed him as an infant. When he was about 4 months old, I had a professional commitment that required my full attention for a few days. So I pumped milk into a bottle and left him in the care of my husband and mother, what was supposed to be a few days. During that time, I received reports that he had literally gone on a food strike, refusing to accept the bottle at all. I was forced to return home by the second day.</p>

<p>That all being said, I have enjoyed raising him, but I feel a lot older than I was when my daughter was this age, and sometimes this obstacle course that I feel that I go through in raising my children is tough. You never know what the right thing to do is.</p>

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<p>Also, I was going to mention that we practice yoga, which is similar to martial arts in many ways. I actually did think that martial arts would be appropriate, just when he is a little older and more mature mentally to understand the responsibility that comes with having those skills. I’ve actually told people that the nice thing about his being trained in ballet and gymnastics is that he could follow the physical path of Jean Claude Van Damme, who also practiced them.</p>

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<p>Look at this ballet piece from youtube.com of Anaheim ballet. It is inspirational:
[YouTube</a> - Anaheim Ballet: We’re Thankful! (One Year)](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY3Lej_POfs]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY3Lej_POfs)</p>

<p>My older daughter started with gymnastic until intense competition. We decided to switch to ballet when she was 10. The younger sister just followed suit when she turned 3. Our pediatrician highly recommends ballet for kids because it builds bone density. </p>

<p>My daughter’s studio is not a big money making place. The teacher/owner only works with kids she likes. Most of their customs are handmade or simple leotards for their recitals. They also do not compete. </p>

<p>There is one boy that started with my younger daughter when he was 5. In the beginning, it was rather dubious whether he would become a good dancer(no turn out, kind of awkward). But each year we saw great improvement. Now at 14, he is buffed (my kids told me). He went to ABT summer intensive this past summer and was just admitted to a dance conservatory.</p>

<p>My girls do have problems with their back and ankles. They go see chiroprator regularly.</p>

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<p>my Ds never really “sparred”- you DON"T have to go that far at all…much at a young age is about kicking a bag, etc., and If you kid couldn’t spar or whatever, most every program I ever saw put NO pressure to do what you couldn’t physically do- sure, you had to stretch yourself, but do you think i wanted my 8 year old 50 lb peanut to spar? no, but she learned to pay attention, she learned balance and poise, she learned gentleness and self control</p>

<p>My neice to this day still has back problems from gymnasticsp being pushed to do more than her body should have, with little recovery time</p>

<p>if you don’t think a kid that is doing gymnastics can’t get hurt in the chest, think again, falling off the balance beam, landing badly…</p>

<p>so mom, you need to decide IF you even want your child to do much physically, because ALL sports contain serious risks, but many many beneifts</p>

<p>and you do really need to address the clingness issue, and lack of social skills displayed by your son, not to sound harsh, but you will not always be there, nor should you be</p>

<p>my H had serious ashma growing up, and he too could have played the victim game, but he didn’t</p>

<p>if your boy still chooses to be treated like a much younger child, and you allow him to do that, in a way feeding the “weak” child mode he is in, I only see problems in the future</p>