Quitting
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| Tue, 12-05-2006 - 11:49pm |
DD has been a cheerleader for forever and she loves doing it - well until now. She has always been the "star" of the squad. Front and center and flyer. She hates it now and I'm not sure the best way to support her now...she's absolutely miserable! I've always believed a sport should be for fun - she's not having fun... here are the issues:
1. The beginning of October dd sprained her ankle in 3 places. She rested it as much as possible to be able to perform at homecoming. At homecoming, she was dropped in front of 5000 people. Not only did she mess up her ankle and her knee, she was humiliated and lost all confidence. When tryouts came up for winter cheering - she did not try out for flyer. Coach made her a flyer anyway and it has just been awful everyday. Either she is dropped or her bases are kicked in the face. They are supposed to be performing in front of the whole school in 2 weeks - dd has no faith in hitting her stunts by then.
2. Dd has always been front and center for the formations and dances - she has now been stuck in the very back. I am completely unbiased and her jumps and dance ability is much more superior than atleast 2 girls that are on the front row now. Supposedly those 2 are on the front row because their parents pitched a fit. I have no intention of pitching a fit. And 2 other girls in the front row have never cheered before...
3. A new addition to the squad has taken the place of dd as the princess of the squad. She's 4'11" and has the natural ability that dd has to work her but off for. I know dd is jealous that its that girl that is getting the ooh's and ahhh's and she had resigned herself to deal with it. This girl has never cheered before and is bossing dd around.
4. Dd works her butt off for cheering. On top of all the practices 6 days a week, she goes to gymnastics 3 days a week, plus after 3 and 4 hour practices she comes home and practices for 1-2 hours more.
5. The squad keeps making mention of her weight and that she's the heaviest flyer. She's 5'2" and 110lbs - she gained 5lbs with the bc pill and her other meds have her retaining some water. So now she is stressing about her weight.
I don't know what to do - I have never advocated quitting - but I can't deal with her misery, her stressing about her weight and the fact that she has lost her confidence she's really going to get hurt. The jealousy is something she needs to learn to deal with. She knows if she quits - her cheering "career" is done. She's a mess... They have late arrival tomorrow, so I may just let her take a "mental" day to figure out what she wants.
WWYD?


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I would let her quit if she wants to.
I did gymnastics when I was her age, I took it for 10 year or more and I ended up wrecking my knees and ankles from the injuries. Now I am 22 and my knees hurt all the time. I can't jog/jump/ or walk a lot without a lot of pain. I was also told I needed to weigh less in order to stay on the team I was on. It was then that I quit.
When a 14 year old is stressing about her weight the sport is no longer healthy.
I wish now I had done something different because being 23 with knee pain when just going for a simple walk with my dog hurts, it was not worth it.
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I don't 'get' what the cheerleading season is so forgive me if this answer doesnt apply
I would strongly encourage her to finish this year and make her decision next year. My oldest played soccer his freshman year and tried out and participated in preseason games his sophomore year. When the coach announced varsity and he wasnt chosen, he quit with my blessing. It was obvious where things were headed and the coach wasnt going anywhere as his own kid was on the squad.
I would think time to clear her head, see who the next years coach will be, and how things seem to pan out in tryouts would be worthwhile.
Once she quits, its unlikely she will have a second chance
Drop in the bucket of life? Im not into sports-my family didnt even watch football over Thanksgiving-but DH still talks about his high school sports days(and he wasnt THAT good-to him, IMHO, it was the key to being around the popular crowd)
So who knows? It MAY be important to her-everyone is different!
What would happen if she quit this year, saying it was due to the injury? Would she be able to be on the squad next year? MY DD was on the track team and loved it but was getting knee pain, which made her running time slower so she was not making varsity. I thought she should not do track last year (11th grade) because of her knee because even though she was running the 100 meter, she still had to run several miles a day in practice. Over the summer, she ended up having arthroscopy. Now she is trying to start running again on the treadmill to see if she could maybe do spring track. I know she wants to do it more for the social aspect since so many of her friends are on the track team, not because she has any hopes of being a top runner. I was glad when she decided that it was better for her to quit the team than to mess up her knee permanently.
I know that cheerleading is so much more demanding than when I did it in h.s. in the 70's. We didn't do all the flying and dangerous stunts they do now. I am afraid that if your DD is worried about re-inuring herself and not confident when flying, she will be more likely to have an injury.
The other stuff about not being in the front and the new "star" on the team is just petty stuff she will have to learn how to deal with in all aspects of her life, so she better get some practice with it now.
She did a list of pro's and con's and the con's outnumbered the pro's. I'm leaving it up to her as hard as this is for me. I'm terrified she's going to get hurt, but I know she can get hurt walking to the bus stop. The weight issue is my biggest concern and I emailed the coach about this.
I hope things get better for you and thanks for the input.
We did talk about that last night that if she quits - she will be labeled a quitter and most likely will be done. I think that is the hardest part of all this for her. Her goal was to make varsity next year and quitting will pretty much doom that.
She just has it in her head she's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. If she continues and her stunts never hit and she lets the team down at the competitions she will be doomed and if she quits she will be doomed.
I emailed the coach about the weight issue and the entire squad yelling at her when the stunts don't work and made it clear either that ends or I'll pull her.
Other than that - it's on dd.....
She has only seen the trainer about her ankle, but hasn't spoken to him about her knee. I think IF she continues she will see him about that. Not sure what would happen if she quit due to the injury b/c that was something we discussed last night as well. Taking the winter off, resting the ankle and the knee and start it up again in the spring.
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Exactly my point!!
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I totally agree with that as well and told dd this from the get go. It's something dd is working on, but definitely something that is bothering her and shattered her ego....
Wow! Cheerleading sure has changed since my hs cheering days -- back in the dark ages. It was all about school spirit, jumping around, making noise and having fun -- and fun I did have!
I'm afraid I don't have any advice (you've gotten lots of good stuff already) just wanted to comment that I think it's a shame that cheerleading has turned into this. I know I'm completely out of touch on this one. I have such fond memories of my own high school cheer days and was a little disappointed when DD showed no interest at all in cheering when she started hs. It seems that maybe that's a good thing after all.
Sorry you're both going through this -- it will all work out in the end.
Oh ... when I cheered, another girl was kicked off the squad because she showed up drunk at a football game. Of course it was a scandal, and initially the girl was a little bit ostracized. But it didn't last long at all, most kids just didn't even care. So if your DD does decide to withraw from the team, I doubt if the 'scandal' will last long. Just a thought that it might not be as bad as she thinks it will be.
UPDATE:
I THINK dd has decided to not quit. She absolutely loves doing it, although when she made out the pros/cons lists the cons outnumbered the pros.
With the issues:
1. She says she's not worried about falling - she says she's quite used to it. She just doesn't want to let everyone down. She will be getting the knee looked at.
2. She's decided this isn't a big issue - she's just glad to be on the team and wants to prove the coach wrong and show the coach she is better than that.
3. Again, petty, and she will work on not letting this girl get to her.
4. She's going to keep working at it, but is going to cut back on the gymnastics until spring.
5. She "says" there is nothing wrong with her weight and I made it clear to her if it became an internal issue with her I would pull her from the squad permanently.
I still haven't heard back from the coach, so I have no idea where she stands on my issues. I guess we'll see where this goes from here. DD and I talked a lot about commitment and if she is doing it she has to stick with it. Too much later and she will really be leaving the squad in a bind. We talked about the drama and how to stay out of it. We talked about the jealousy and how that accomplishes nothing. IDK I'm guessing it's out of my hands and we'll see where this leads....
Thank you all for the words of advice!
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