Character Counts

My daughter started gymnastics when she was 2 years old. By the time she was 8, she was practicing 20 plus hours a week and we were paying almost two hundred dollars a month in fees. The club that she had always attended was ready for her to start competing. The progression of this was that she would then need to take a dance class on top of her 20 plus hours of training and she would be required to compete at every meet. There was no expectation that we as her parents would travel with her. She would travel with the coaches. On top of the 200 dollars a month there would be travel fees, additional coaching fees, room and board, entry fees for the meets. We did a little calculating and found that we were about to take a hit to the wallet in the tune of closer to $400.00 a month. Money aside, we were very uncomfortable with our child traveling with out us. We began to count the cost of her participation in gymnastics at this level, including the physical risks that are inherent in an athlete at her young age and decided that the cost was to high. The prevalent attitude of the gym was that "our child should eat, sleep and breathe gymnastics" Gymnastics was to be the most important thing in her life. As her parents we felt that their were other things in her life that should be more important that this sport. Her faith and family to name two. We found another club that would allow her to compete on their team with three hour practices a week. We would be able to choose which competitions to participate in and life would be back in balance. It was a difficult adjustment for her but she grew to love the new gym and her new coaches. She enjoys competing and loves to be part of a team.

This past year however, we have begun to see a change in the overall attitude of the club. Because we home school and because I do not spend any time with any of the other parents I am somewhat out of the loop. However, we started to see that the parents are pushing to make things more competitive. The coaches are responding and we have seen this shift in how things are being approached. I did not realize how drastically things had shifted until the other night when the coach, in front of my children, suggested that a meet we were going to be unable to go to was more important than our family business and the trip we were taking. She actually suggested that we leave our child with a neighbor or someone for the two weeks we were going to be gone so that she could attend a one day meet. When I explained that we were not going to do that she told me that the other option we had available was to sign her up and pay the fees. At the last minute we could then say that our child was sick and unable to attend. This would satisfy the her requirements and she would be able to go on to participate at a higher level competition. We would be signing up with the intent of not competing and then lying about it.
My daughter went on to practice but afterwards I asked her if she had heard the conversation and what she though about it. She had caught onto what the coach was asking us to do. She knew that it was unfair to the other girls and she knew that it was wrong. I was proud of her understanding and her character. I am disappointed in the character of her coach.