My little gymnast shows promise -- now what?

You already know my daughter takes dance. What she loves more than dance these days is gymnastics. And apparently she's pretty good at it because her teachers are urging me to put her in a "developmental," or advanced, class.

Currently, we head over to the Oregon Gymnastics Academy on Thursday mornings for 50 minutes of balance beam walking, tumbling, swinging on bars and practice vaulting. Also a little socializing -- her with her little leotard-wearing classmates, me with the moms in the stands. My daughter loves the activities, shows a moderate amount of bravery on high equipment and is really good at pointing her toes.

But at age 4, does she need to be in advanced training?

I'm still getting all the facts on what this involves. What I do know is the classes go from being 50 minutes once a week to 90 minutes twice a week. Later on there may be competitions, more practice sessions, travel. This could evolve into a big commitment not just for her, but for our entire family. Entire books have been written about girls who become competitive gymnasts or dancers or ice skaters. It's not all pretty handsprings or pirouettes or triple Salchows. There are sacrifices, injuries, failures as well as successes.

On the other hand, if she has a real talent for the sport, shouldn't we nurture it?

Have any of you embarked on such a path with your child?

Comments

[Renee]

Our niece, who lives in California, is on this path. I think she started classes around 4, showed early promise and now they spend quite a lot of time in classes, going to meets, etc. You're right that it's a big commitment for the family as well as the child. With my relatives, I think they offered it to their daughter, and said if you want to pursue this you can, but then it's the sole focus (i.e., no more dance, no more soccer, only gymnastics). So far that's working for them. They also have a son who excels in sports. So he does baseball in spring and soccer in the fall -- so it evens out to each child having one activity at a time, altho I'd guess the gymnastics takes up the most time.

[Amber]

I have not been down this exact path, but have something in my random mind what I'd consider similar. I am having such a hard time with letting my almost five year old (whaa!) go to kindergarten full-day versus half-day next year. My husband thinks full-day for sure and I am not thinking that so much. However, what about these extracurricular hours. I was looking at the Foothills soccer and thought, what a blast?!? On the other hand, can my child really handle something after a full-day at school? That is my big dilemma. Also, the pratice and game commitments? Ai Yai Yai!
If your four year old daughter is not yet in school, I think it might be fun to go for it now. Once the school starts, she'd be seasoned for the sport and commitment. Also, is this something that you do not lose a ton of money on if it just plum doesn't work?!?

[Renee]

Hi Amber -- Its a big jump from preschool to KG. I remember having a lot of those concerns last year too when we were going thru that. I'm not sure about Foothills -- you should check if they do refunds for if it doesn't work out. It did seem like quite a few kids dropped once the season started last year. We did the full day, and it was OK for us. A lot of friends said their kids were very emotional and hard to deal with for a long time. It's a big transition year. One mom friend of older kids suggested to me that it's better for them to do that transition to full day while in KG, since they aren't learned as much than if they wait and do it in First Grade. So that was one supporting argument that led up to full-day. On the flipside, we know other friends who opted for half day. Turns out, they a get a ton of teacher attention since full-day is more popular where we go to school, and they get to save $295/month compared to us -- so that's a nice soccer, art class, music, etc. class allowance, and maybe not such a big deal if you end up dropping a sport that's not working out.

The other thing is you can probably change if the full day seems like to much (but not the other way around). Lots of people will caution it will be traumatic for the kid, and it might be. Depends on temperament. Most kids are fairly resilient!!