What Your Child Can Get Out of Competitive Teams

When your child wants to join a sports team you’ll have lots of questions. How much time is required? Will we still be able to have family time? What about homework? What about school altogether? For many teams, such as soccer or softball, the time commitments are not so large as to significantly affect your family’s lifestyle. For gymnastics, the commitment is much larger, but before you say no, think about the benefits for your child of participating with competitive gymnastics teams.

Basic Benefits

Just as with recreational gymnastics classes, children’s overall fitness continues to improve when committing to a team. Strength, flexibility, and endurance all increase as your child spends more time working on gymnastics skills and routines. At the same time, as her abilities move to new levels she’ll also become more confident not only in the gym but in all areas of her life. Most children who are involved in a competitive sport that they love also do well in school, despite the time required for workouts and competitions.

Growth of Mental and Emotional Skills

Joining a competitive gymnastics team also boosts a child's mental and emotional growth. Goal setting becomes more important, giving her a solid foundation for this life skill. Learning how to cope with the boredom of repetition, as a child practices the same routine over and over again, contributes to a mental toughness that lets her see beyond the moment to the ultimate goal. And as hard as it may be to accept, turning in a less-than-stellar performance at a competition teaches resilience so your child can get up and try again.

Social Rewards

Although you may be concerned that the commitment required by competitive teams may take away from your child’s social life, many former gymnasts agree that the friendships formed with team members are among the most solid and long-lasting of their relationships throughout their lives. Your child will learn to cheer on her teammates and rejoice for the one who achieves the highest score. Children on competitive teams also learn about commitment; they don’t want to let their coach and teammates down, so they go to practice even when they don’t want to.


Overall, whether your child competes with a series of teams as she grows older or finds that a couple of years of competition is all she wants, she’ll achieve a sense of accomplishment she can find nowhere else.

How to Prepare Your Athlete for Competitions

Your young gymnast is getting ready for her first competition! This is an exciting milestone in her life as she moves into the world of competitive teams and it deserves some special recognition. And—let’s face it—this is an exciting moment for you as her parent. While you should leave the technical training to the coach, you also have an important role to play in preparing her for this big day. Breaking down the help your athlete needs from you into a couple of categories—physical and logistical—will help you stay organized.

Physical Prep:

As noted above, leave the training to your gymnast’s coach. Your focus should be on keeping your athlete healthy.

• Provide a balanced diet. Of course, you’re doing this anyway, right? So just continue to offer him an assortment of lean meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, and grains.
• Breakfast on competition days can be low-fat yogurt and granola or whole-grain cereal with low-fat milk. Be sure to add some fruit like a banana, strawberries, or blueberries.
• Make sure your athlete gets a good night’s rest before the competition. This is not a time for sleepovers or parties.

Logistical Prep:

Preparing for a competition requires organization, especially if your athlete is new to competitive teams. As she becomes more experienced, she’ll be able to do some of the preparation herself, but she’ll still need your help with other matters.

• Pack the gym bag the night before the competition. Use a checklist to make sure your gymnast has everything needed for the day, including healthy snacks and plenty of water.
• Double-check the bag’s contents against the checklist.
• Allow plenty of time to get to the competition venue or team meeting place. It’s a good idea to check the route a day or two before the meet so you know how to get there.
• Make as many decisions ahead of time as possible.  The day of competition, your athlete should be focused on his routine and doing his best.

Finally, help your gymnast relax the night before. Serve a favorite dinner and watch an inspiring movie together. Then stick to that early bedtime. Both of you will need a good night’s sleep before the big day.