All-Star 4-year-old Cheerleader To Be...

[123jump4!]

I have a 6-year-old and a 4-year-old. CP6 has just joined a mini 1 team and I have been worrying she's "behind" and needs to "catch up" with the rest of the girls. It's ok now, I have calmed down a lot and she's doing fine on the team.

CP4 has just started a "tiny cheer class" at the same gym. It's... well... quite funny to watch. There are a couple of 3-year-olds who can not follow direction much, they run off to their moms all the time for a hug or potty break. The tumbling skills that are worked are forward rolls and handstand against mat with spot (basically coach holding child upside down). They also do some cute jumping and stunting.

My CP4 loves the class. She says she wants to do cheer every day... But she thinks it's too easy. She can already do forward roll to standing, and is beginning to do handstands and cartwheels on her own. (She also does a gymnastics class once a week.)

So, I feel like CP6 is being pushed almost too much and CP4 is not being pushed enough!

My question is: What is it like at your gym? Do you have 4-5-year-olds in your cheer or tumbling classes and what skills are they learning? Or what did you or your child do at that age? I'm also curious about Tiny teams, what do they learn there and is it a lot of pressure? (If she joined a team it would be next season, when she's 5.)

 

[DaniV]

We have one 4 year-old and three 5-year olds on our Youth team (we don't have a mini or tiny team this year). The 4-year old has a backwalkover and is working on elite level 1 tumbling passes. The 5 year-olds just learned cartwheels and are working on round-offs. They are required to do all of the stunts and jumps that everyone else does so they are not treated any differently than the older kids. The only difference is that we give them a bit of a pardon on their attention spans for standing clean.

When I've coached Mini and Tiny teams in the past it was basically a glorified tumbling class with some stunting and jumps included. They competed at the prep level and their routine was only a minute and 30 seconds. Each gym runs their mini and tiny teams differently and they all set their own minimum age. I would suggest talking with her coach or the tiny coach for next year on what she would suggest doing to make sure that your youngest isn't getting too bored in class and still feels challenged.

 

[123jump4!]

We have one 4 year-old and three 5-year olds on our Youth team (we don't have a mini or tiny team this year). The 4-year old has a backwalkover and is working on elite level 1 tumbling passes. The 5 year-olds just learned cartwheels and are working on round-offs. They are required to do all of the stunts and jumps that everyone else does so they are not treated any differently than the older kids. The only difference is that we give them a bit of a pardon on their attention spans for standing clean.

When I've coached Mini and Tiny teams in the past it was basically a glorified tumbling class with some stunting and jumps included. They competed at the prep level and their routine was only a minute and 30 seconds. Each gym runs their mini and tiny teams differently and they all set their own minimum age. I would suggest talking with her coach or the tiny coach for next year on what she would suggest doing to make sure that your youngest isn't getting too bored in class and still feels challenged.

Wow... That's brave of the 4&5-year-olds to be on the Youth team! Sounds like they're doing good.

The "glorified tumbling class with some stunting and jumps" sounds perfect, something like that is what I would want for her if she's on a Tiny team.

 

[TheVipersMom]

At old gym - My daughter was 5 on a tiny team with 3, 4, and 5 year olds. The 3 year olds really had no business on the team honestly. Let's talk about peeing on their self and their lack of attention. I was annoyed. My daughter was 5 though so I tried being understanding .. We joined right before competition started and the tiny team worked on tumbling a lot. The routine was barely worked on. We competed and the 3 year olds were lost running everywhere. We weren't that good and we lost .. To other tiny teams!

I think they should of told some of those parents those kids were not ready. Just my thoughts. I don't care that the kids took forever to get a cartwheel it wasn't about that I was literally only upset about kids getting to sit down at practice because they threw a temper tantrum and didn't want to be there.


New gym will only allow those kids to do a show team. They will not put a tiny team together and the only time they ever had mini team they were amazing and won NCA. If they did not have level 1 skills and the attention span to do it those kids even if mini aged were left on show team that year




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[DaniV]

Wow... That's brave of the 4&5-year-olds to be on the Youth team! Sounds like they're doing good.

The "glorified tumbling class with some stunting and jumps" sounds perfect, something like that is what I would want for her if she's on a Tiny team.

I'd also say it's brave of us coaches to allow it .

 

[DaniV]

@Kris10boo - omg, Terror Tots. I love it!

That was a very talented mini's team!

 

[123jump4!]

@Kris10boo I can understand you and Jaylen were annoyed! I think I agree most 3-year-olds should not be on a team. They are not ready and they are just too young, like you say. My 4-year-old could have maybe been ok on a tiny team this season. I thought about it for a second but did not want to push her.

How did Jaylen start learning her skills, was it when she joined the team?

 

[TheVipersMom]

@Kris10boo - omg, Terror Tots. I love it!

That was a very talented mini's team!

Yes I'm sure she doesn't care but @SheCheers daughter was on this team. When she sent me this video the last year we were at our old gym (Jaylen was on a mini 1 and youth 2) I saw this team and I was blown away. Our mini 1 team would of been demolished by this team! Lol

They haven't had a mini 1 since because they don't feel they would be this strong.

We do have a bunch of mini aged kids that are strong athletes on our y1 this year but it wasn't quite enough to be able to field a y1 and m1 of strong teams so they went with y1.


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[Helen uk uni cheer]

@Kris10boo I can understand you and Jaylen were annoyed! I think I agree most 3-year-olds should not be on a team. They are not ready and they are just too young, like you say. My 4-year-old could have maybe been ok on a tiny team this season. I thought about it for a second but did not want to push her.

I agree with not having 3 year olds on a team tiny teams are not big in england but mini and youth are.
At my old program they had a youth team with most mini age as they had a few youth age not ready for juniors. The youth team were great but it was hard to be truly competitive with most mini aged kids on a youth team. This year they have made a mini team but will only accept age 4+ and I think are not competitng. I think 5 is a great age to start as their attention span starts growing.

 

[TheVipersMom]

@Kris10boo I can understand you and Jaylen were annoyed! I think I agree most 3-year-olds should not be on a team. They are not ready and they are just too young, like you say. My 4-year-old could have maybe been ok on a tiny team this season. I thought about it for a second but did not want to push her.

How did Jaylen start learning her skills, was it when she joined the team?

She had absolutely nothing when she joined the tiny team around the time of school starting back. So they just placed her in the back of the routine. It took about a month and she got her backbend and kick over ...
Not much longer she could do a BWO but not with straight legs. I think on a team of 15 about 4 could do a backbend kick over by the end of the season. The rest did forward rolls. It had nothing to do with the skills that bothered me just simply the lack of attention some of them had that clearly didn't want to be there.

Not that I blame them because the gym took everyone that walked in that door that wanted to sign up for a class and they got them on a team so it just worked out that way!


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[Teacher Mom]

I'd also say it's brave of us coaches to allow it .

I'd have to agree. It is like herding cats.

 

[cheer25mom]

I'd also say it's brave of us coaches to allow it .

A third of our youth 1 last year was 6, and we have five 6 year olds on youth 2 this year. I said several times that I just wouldn't have the patience to put up with it so hats off to you.

I tend to think that there has to be a better way to handle this issue though. Unprepared little kids just stuck on youth teams because there aren't enough for minis really benefits no one. The kids usually end up only lasting 1season because the aren't developmentally ready for this level of cheer, and the older kids on the team eventually get tired of conditioning because the same couple of little ones are bouncing off the walls and start resenting them. I don't get why they aren't referred to a prep team or a show team, but at our gym "everyone makes a team" is a big thing and that always means full season if they want it, even when they are completely unprepared.


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[123jump4!]

@cheer25mom I agree, that sounds like a problem. Poor kids. But that's not the issue here. CP4 is not on a team now and next year when she's 5, she would be the oldest on a Tiny team. I wouldn't have her on Mini until she's 6. Or 7 if they change the Tiny max age to 6...?

 

[cheer25mom]

@cheer25mom I agree, that sounds like a problem. Poor kids. But that's not the issue here. CP4 is not on a team now and next year when she's 5, she would be the oldest on a Tiny team. I wouldn't have her on Mini until she's 6. Or 7 if they change the Tiny max age to 6...?

It's great that there will be a team for her, but at smaller gym that isn't always the case. It sounds to me like she is getting age appropriate coaching as well. We have tiny tumble and mini tumble classes for 3-5 and 6-7 year olds respectively, and they sound pretty much like you are describing. Once a child has a backbend kick over and has demonstrated that they have the attention span to handle it, they can move out of those classes and into tumble 1 if the parent chooses. I think it is a good system to appropriately challenge the kids that move faster.


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[mamabear]

I finally got to watch the Terror Tots! What a great routine. The tumbling was fun to watch. I am so jealous