At FCGC we provide opportunities for people to develop skills for life. An important part of this is ensuring gymnasts own their experiences. Parents are an important factor in ensuring gymnasts develop the ability to own their experiences, which will enable them to make better decisions on their own and accept the consequences of their choices.
So what can parents do to help? Anne Josephine from JAG Gym suggests the following 12 ways to let your child own their sport experience. 1. Drop WE for HE/SHE. Watch what pronouns you are using when you are talking about your child’s sport. Unless you are your child’s coach, WE do not have practice or a game, HE/SHE does. Pronouns are the part of speech that indicates possession. Let your child possess their sports experience. 2. Don’t keep up with the Jones’. Just because the Jones’ hire a private coach, send their child to an expensive sports camp or begin home-schooling so little Janie can train more, does not mean your family needs to follow suit. 3. Sole expectation: character counts. The only expectations you should have of your child is that they treat their coaches, teammates and opponents with respect, and that they give their best effort. 4. Little gymnasts have big ears. Be careful of your comments around your child regarding the coaches or the abilities of other teammates. Critiquing the coach can disturb the bond between the coach and athlete. Comparing your child’s performance to a teammate’s can create jealousy and weaken friendships. If you have a problem or question, speak directly to the coach. 5. Take a break from the bleachers. Watch how much and how intently you watch practice. Give your child some space to have the experience to themselves. 6. If you can’t say anything nice… You have two options on the sidelines: cheer or be silent. 7. No comment. Don’t comment on refereeing or judging. 8. Goals are between coach and athlete. Let your child and your child’s coach set the goals related to the sport. If asked about your goals for your child your answer should be for them to have fun. 9. Don’t process your feelings with your child. Your feelings of inadequacy from your own childhood sports experience, your frustration with your child’s coach or your feelings of disappointment with your child’s results; are not things to talk about with your child. Instead, turn to your partner, friend or therapist for support, but do not make your child responsible for your feelings. It is your job to help your child with their feelings not the other way around. 10. Don’t use the car ride to coach. Talk about mastering skills, how good it feels to exercise or be part of team instead of win/loss records, missed plays or how the child can improve his/her performance. 11. Let your child experience logical consequences. If your child violates a team policy and has to miss a game, breaks a rule and has a consequence or forgets a necessary piece of equipment and cannot play, don’t rescue them. Sure, if they are very young, they need parental help to keep their gear together, but by 8 or 9 years they should be responsible for their own items. 12. Encourage your child to communicate directly with their coaches. Again, as reasonably expected given the child’s age, the athlete should take responsibility in communicating with the coach. There is a saying that if we are lucky we will have two chances at the parent-child relationship. First, as the child, then as the parent. It is important to remember which role we are playing and whose sports journey this is.
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1. Fun: We all know how much fun gymnastics can be. It lets kids be kids, by climbing, jumping, swinging, playing and learning.
All the things amazing little people love to do! 2. Team Work: Although you may not consider gymnastics a team sport, for a pre-schooler, their class is their team. They need to interact and play in a positive manner, enabling everyone to have a good time while sharing equipment and the coaches’ time. 3. Asking for Help: If children feel confident asking for the help of adults at a young age, they are more likely to be able to use that skill later in life. Gymnastics will at times be challenging, creating the perfect opportunity for gymnasts to ask for help, not only from their grown ups but also from other adult figures such as coaches, and even their peers. 4. Persistence: The first time a gymnast walks into class they are not going to be able to do every activity asked of them, but through repetition and encouragement gymnasts will begin to understand that, by repeating a skill over and over they will see progression and achievement. 5. Conflict Resolution: How does a gymnast feel when they miss out on sitting on a green carpet square? Or when someone makes it to the rings before they do, requiring them to wait their turn? Gymnastics classes are the perfect opportunity for grown ups to help children understand how to deal with these situations and how to control their emotions in a positive way. 6. Following Instruction: Following instructions is a skill that has to be learned, just like walking. We help our children learn to walk by supporting them physically and creating a safe environment where they can trial and error the skill. This is what a gymnastics class does for instructions. (If gymnasts are not able to follow a set instruction, they will be able to explore what is important to them at the time and then be brought back to the activity. This is done through adult guidance or through recognition, by seeing another gymnasts participating). 7. Appropriate Interaction: Learning to have good manners and speak in a way that is respectful is an important skill for pre-schoolers to learn. Gymnastics class helps a child learn to treat the teacher with respect, and helps then understand how to navigate social dynamics with their pre-school peers. 8. Brain Development: Gymnastics is the best sport for helping children develop brain skills such as cross patterning, vestibular awareness, problem solving, kinaesthetic development and visual tracking. Each week our classes are programmed to specially involve activities that build on these skills. 9. Confidence: How could gymnasts not become more confident when working and developing physically, mentally and socially? With the support of their grown up and team mates, children are able to increase self-esteem from an early age. 10. Creating a life long love of Physical Activity and Movement: In a world that is becoming more and more sedentary, developing a love and enjoyment of physical activity and body confidence at a young age is crucial. This will assist in leading a long, happy and healthy lifestyle. “Positive thinking creates positive actions, and negative thinking creates negative actions.”
“Positive thinking, Positive outcome” “How you see your future is much more important than what has happened in your past” “A positive mind finds a way it can be done” There are hundreds and thousands of sayings about having a positive mind set. Telling someone to think positive is very easy, but how can we break it down to a particle level to help them really apply it to what they are doing? How can we make them take it in and help them truly change the thoughts they are thinking? You may think you cannot change what goes in in your brain, but there are strategies we can use to not only help ourselves, but also those around us, to have a brighter outlook on the task which is at hand.
It is important to remember that a positive thought pattern and activities like the S-B-V-GO! are learnt skills and they take practice. The more time you spend working on a positive mind set the easier and more natural it will become. It is possible to change your mindset. Choose to be happy. |
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