to stop my child potentially coming last

[spiderpig8]

She wants to enter a county wide schools gymnastics competition.
It is aimed at kids who train for more than 2 hours aweek.DD doesn't, and bless her heart, she is never going to be any good gymnastics.
I am fearful that she is going to be hopelessly outclassed by the other kids, come last by a long way and be upset and stop doing gymnastics, which is the only sport she likes.
She is 9, Y5 and has picked the easiest moves to include in her routine and even some of them are a little 'inconsistent'.For example often her handstand is rather fleeting.To make it worse her gymanstics classes have been temporarily suspended , so she has mostly had to prepare herself!
Would you let her go in for it? (the school say it's up to her?)

Redwine, that's what my son said to DD after she was last in the village fun run --'Well, dsis, there are 60 million people in the country, and you came ahead of nearly all of them!'

Competing out of his league didn't do Eddie Eagle any harm did it ?

Thankyou for your replies.
She did it! I am so glad she went.She came 18th out of 25 and was very proud of herself.I was very proud of her too just for taking part.

Well done to Spiderpig8's DD.

Great news

I think your daughter sounds like she has a brilliant spirit. She probably has an idea herself where she is in terms of competition. I would support her, be proud of her and if she does get disappointed go get a huge icecream on the way home!

Sorry posted that too late - didn't see final post! Brilliant news

Good for her - and not too shabby for someone who has hardly trained either!

Spider well done to your DD.

Swash I have a ballet daughter who does "festivals" (aka competitions). They are toe curling in many ways and I'd be the first to admit I'm conflicted about many elements of them. The first one she did neither she nor I were prepared in any way for ...now we are a few years down the line and I can certainly attribute at least some of her resilience to these events. She rarely wins; but not winning and getting back up and doing it again next time has really forged her determination and go-getter attitude, which in turn has fed into success for her in other activities. I couldn't care less whether she wins or not, but I am hugely proud of her attitude.

I have to say it was a bit of an eye opener though.Parents not behaving too well. Kids crying if they went wrong (secondary school age). 8 YO with eyes plastered in blue eyeshadow and glitter.

"I have to say it was a bit of an eye opener though.Parents not behaving too well."

I told you so! Some of them are truely vile, aren't they?

WELL DONE to your daughter, may this be the first of many enjoyable competitions. :)

18 out of 25 is brilliant!

I'm glad you let her make her own mind up in the end.

I used to love gymnastics when I was in Junior School. I was crap at it, but I loved it. I did the Coca-cola awards, and only got level 4 (level 1 was the highest), but it was definitely worth doing.

I spent a lot of my life being told I shouldn't do things because I wouldn't do very well (possibly truthfully), and it really made me unconfident, so I'm really pleased that you were behind your DD, and didn't show your worry to her :)

I've spoken on threads before about some of the young people I see not being able to distinguish between failing at something and being a failure - I really think being encouraged to have a go at things, even if you are not very good at them, would go a very long way to changing this and would be a VERY GOOD THING for society.

I know the general consensus is to "Go for it!" but I REALLY disagree. The kind of people who enter these contests have professional training as well as parents who make damn sure it happens just the way they want.

There's also one more point which I consider to be very important:

Does your daughter have all the right gear? When I was 9 I used to go to a weekly Irish dancing lesson, just for fun. My mother never really spoke to the other parents, and never really got a feel for the 'culture' surrounding it, so when I was asked to go in for a competition, we assumed it would be a straightforward affair. I wasn't great, but I knew the dances I was being asked to do. In the end, I did win medals, but that wasn't the point. The point was that going to the competition was like stepping into another planet. The other girls were all being dressed in these regulation black sparkly dresses all the same, and were all having their hair curled and their faces smeared with makeup. I was just wearing a normal little-girl dress, and a ponytail, and stood out like a sore thumb. We didn't even know the 'proper' way to display the medals, and when mum merrily threaded them onto a ribbon for me to wear, people thought it was 'hilarious'. The thought makes me cringe to this day. Bless her, my mum did her best to make sure I had a good time and felt proud, but people looked at us all day as if we were insane.

Competitions like this are truly another world. You may be prepared to compete on an ability level, but the competition culture may be something you'd be best avoiding if you don't want to buy into the whole thing.