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I have always performed better and pushed myself harder for a 'mean' coach than a nicey-nice "positive reinforcement" type coach.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oh-eve
I always did best when I had a mean coach.
This is the only reason she's been where she has been for so long, but I'm making the change because it's run its course. She needs words from someone different because the same yelling words from the same coach just go in one ear and out the other at this point.
This happened to my child when she was 8 and I pulled her out of the place. She was not in a competitive class. She was there to learn some basic tumbling moves and to have fun. When it was no longer fun I pulled her out. I also let management know that the coach yelled at these young girls as I find it absolutely ridiculous! I also don't agree with the posters that said they did better when the coach was mean. Most of these class are not competitive and the children are there just to have fun, not to be yelled at! These are young kids, not teens or adults. Personally I think being yelled upon at such a young age would hurt their confidence instead of helping it as most of these places promote!
But as for yelling...I have always performed better and pushed myself harder for a 'mean' coach than a nicey-nice "positive reinforcement" type coach.
Like, I prefer the trainer that calls you a lazy maggot over the ones that smile and congratulate you for doing the minimum.
Same with martial arts. Same with other sports.
Even when I was a kid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oh-eve
I always did best when I had a mean coach.
However, there is a line. Yelling to encourage is one thing but yelling and being totally out of line - not acceptable.
I had a nasty English teacher in school (in Germany). He punished me even if I just forgot to bold the headline. As a result the whole class was learning English pretty well which in turn allowed me to pursue a career where good written English skills were mandatory. Sooooo... I am glad he was a mean bastard even though I sometimes cried because of him.
I'm fine with strict; I was a strict mom myself. But mean, no. My kids did gymnastics for years. From the time the oldest one started till the youngest one graduated HS gymnastics was about 14 years. I saw many coaching styles. The really mean ones didn't get any better performance out of the kids than the strict but nice ones. The high school coach was the best; she was able to coach all levels from kids who'd never done gymnastics to kids who were Level 10 USAG. She was not mean either, though she did bench one of my daughters once for deliberately being defiant (which was her wont). I did take one out of a program once due to irreconcilable differences with a coach.
Thanks everyone for your answers! This really gives me hope that we will find a better fit! This one is just not working. I am intrigued by the comments about the coaches from the former communist countries, there actually is a strong connection there with our situation and I had never thought about it that way until now! Thanks and good luck to everyone else having the same issues. The gift card thing just added to my decision that leaving is the right thing to do! Thanks again
I think that it does depend upon the gym, and the difference between firm correction and meanness. Three of my nieces were in gymnastics, and the coaches were all over the map from the stereotypical "Soviet" system countries to modern American methods. I usually had the fortune to take them to the gym as I have more freedom in my schedule, and it's convenient to my house, but there are glaring issues with some coaches.
One coach was an absolutely wonderful gentleman, who was getting an advanced degree in Education, who was 6'4" and had a deep booming voice. He could correct properly, without yelling, and would adjust the timbre of his voice to get the attention of the girls in short order. He never sugar-coated the message, and got results, and the girls loved him. He was the best coach they had, and sadly is no longer at the gym because he had a congenital heart issue and suffered a fatal episode.
There was another coach who did not care, and she would yell and pout, posing on her phone, while in class -- mind you, this was a recreational class, not competitive. One of my nieces had a friend on the competitive team, and saw her at the gym, waving to her. The Eastern Bloc coach on the competitive side went ballistic and screamed at my niece's friend for breaking training, and stormed over to the ineffective coach in a fit, gesturing at my niece. I called my niece over before she got there, and she came to the wall and was ranting about "breaking training." I said that we were in a recreational class and that my niece was my responsibility, and if I called her over to discuss something important, it was my prerogative to do so. She told me that she would see to it that we were thrown out of the gym permanently, causing my niece (5-years-old at the time) to cry, and muttered under her breath in Russian, and went pale when I said "Thank you, madam" in Russian. I walked over to the office, and explained the situation to the American wife of the gym's owner, an American, and a cool guy who knew me for talking to him about his custom Harley-Davidson and he assured me that we were not going to be thrown out.
The other stress factor I had as a non-parent, uncle, adult chaperon was that I was on the recreational side and the competitive moms were the mean moms, hence why my SIL cajoled me into dealing with them. They could be worse than the coaches, tearing the girls apart in the stands, especially when they thought I couldn't hear them with my headphones. And, they thought the recreational classes were awful, etc., clogging up their gym, and taking their parking. They were not friendly and welcoming, and tore the other girls to shreds when the mothers were not around, those that they judged to be "inferior" to their clique.
I was not at all unhappy when they drifted away from gymnastics and into other sports, even if I have to drive further to take them to their practices and whatnot, on days I am available. But, many of the coaches, I found, tended to be good, but the outliers could ruin the sport for anyone, either too soft and praising every attempt or cutting and cruel under the old "Soviet" style of training where everything was hard and cold. I would not hesitate to move to another sport if you do not think that the methods are of benefit to your daughter, not with the way I have seen some act in the sport.
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All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII)
90% of young children would turn a gymnastics class into a slumber party without pressure from the coach. There is no such thing as lessons 'just for fun'. You either want them to be gymnasts or you don't.
When you decided on a gymnastics class, did your daughter look at a bunch of smiling, laughing, goofing around girls and say "oooh, that looks like fun!", or did she see a group of girls with mad skills working in synchronization to perfection and say "I want to be able to do that!"?
This is part of the reason my kids quit soccer we could not stand the soccer parents . Always yelling and swearing and tearing the kids apart because they did not live up to their expectations .I looked at my husband and told him really ? this is not what we put our boys into soccer for and we left and never went back and it seems as though it is the same way with any kids sports , the parents tearing em down and then if the coach is not neo Nazi then he or she is not a good coach . No thank you my kids kept their noses in books and they managed to get good grades and careers were they are not suffering from arthritis , reoccurring muscular aches and pains in their bodies because they charged ahead full blast into sports .
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