Age... Levels... Other Sports

[MamaC]

My daughter is 11 and has been cheering for about 5-6 years. She loves it. She is good - not great - but good. She also plays volleyball and softball so cheer is not everything to her. But it is her first love.

Most if not all of her cheer friends only cheer and spend all their free time at the gym. My daughter is there 3-4 days a week for 2-3 hours a time between tumble privates and practice. But her friends that are there more are obviously moving ahead quicker.

I keep explaining to her that it is not a bad thing.

1) I told her that she is very young, and has time to move the the levels and really perfect her skills before moving up to the next level (she is new to basing this year and doing well on a 4.2 team and uses her tumbling on the S3 team she is on).
2) I told her that it is her choice (which I like) that she does things other than cheer. So she has to be happy for her friends that dedicate so much of their time to this one sport and acknowledge their achievements, but keep in mind that she has other things and other goals and enjoy them while she can.

My question is this - For All Star Cheer should you only cheer / tumble? How many kids do outside sports like my daughter? It seems to be frowned upon by others but she doesn't miss practices or competitions and when she is at the gym she gives 100%.

Wanted some input and to know what others tell their athletes...

Thanks!

 

[retiredl5cheer]

As long as she's not missing practices or competition and she's being placed according to the amount of work she puts in, then I think it's totally fine. As a coach, I only get angry if other activities interfere with cheer. Now, if she were on a SR 5 and was doing other activities and only coming to the gym 2 or 3 times a week, I'd be side-eyeing you.

 

[Mclovin]

I think your point #2 hit the nail on the head. As long as she understands that her friends are progressing faster than her because they are putting a lot more time into being GREAT at one thing rather than being good as several things. Every child is different. If your child is happy spreading herself out to do several different sports/activities then that's what she should be doing. If she desires to be GREAT at just one of those things, I would support that, too. There's really no right or wrong decision there.

 

[ashscott41]

As long as she is always at practices and giving it her all I see nothing wrong with it. The skills she is learning in those other sports are also applicable to cheer. The motion of diving for a dig in volleyball is the same motion needed to dive and catch her flyer. The explosive running she needs to sprint to first in softball is the same way she needs to run before a tumbling pass. And I'm sure her cheer skills show up in her other sports too.

I had a girl on my team who was just very naturally athletic. She was on a worlds team, played travel soccer, ran cross country and track, and I think played volleyball for her school. She always had better endurance than anyone else on the team, and could step in and do any spot because she was so muscular and strong from her other sports. As long as she stays away from injury in the other sports, I don't see why anyone should have a problem with it.


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[Gemma]

My daughter does soccer and hip hop also, and I make sure that none of them interfere with each other at all. Cheer is the only thing that she does--and wants to do--year round though and is her main thing. We have always made it very clear that it's her choice what she wants to do and if she ever said she wanted to stop one thing and focus on the other that is her decision. I think it's good to keep her well rounded and have an interest in other things, but if she were to tell me she wanted to do just one thing that would be fine with me... a lot less driving around!

 

[fiercerando88]

My daughter is 11 and has been cheering for about 5-6 years. She loves it. She is good - not great - but good. She also plays volleyball and softball so cheer is not everything to her. But it is her first love.

Most if not all of her cheer friends only cheer and spend all their free time at the gym. My daughter is there 3-4 days a week for 2-3 hours a time between tumble privates and practice. But her friends that are there more are obviously moving ahead quicker.

I keep explaining to her that it is not a bad thing.

1) I told her that she is very young, and has time to move the the levels and really perfect her skills before moving up to the next level (she is new to basing this year and doing well on a 4.2 team and uses her tumbling on the S3 team she is on).
2) I told her that it is her choice (which I like) that she does things other than cheer. So she has to be happy for her friends that dedicate so much of their time to this one sport and acknowledge their achievements, but keep in mind that she has other things and other goals and enjoy them while she can.

My question is this - For All Star Cheer should you only cheer / tumble? How many kids do outside sports like my daughter? It seems to be frowned upon by others but she doesn't miss practices or competitions and when she is at the gym she gives 100%.

Wanted some input and to know what others tell their athletes...

Thanks!

My cheer years were done long ago, but I always did multiple sports and I wouldn't have changed that for the world. In jr high and hs I typically went from school sports (field hockey and indoor/outdoor track) right to the gym. Some days I missed warmups/stretching at cheer, but my coaches knew I had just come from either a game or another 2+hr practice. I gave all my coaches all my schedules and was able to work it out so that I think I missed maybe one or two practices throughout my almost-13 years of cheer. What I loved most about being a multisport athlete was that I was conditioned in other ways my teammates (on all teams) were not. Being in "field hockey" shape made me a stronger base and vice versa. Track was also good because I was a distance runner which helped my endurance for the routine. I was able to have more friends, and more experiences as a result. I'd highly recommend it as long as she is enjoying herself and committed to both. Oh it also helped me with time management skills because I had to maintain honor roll w honors/ap courses in order to keep up my extracurriculars!

Also (sorry for the novel) but she is still young and may narrow down her activities as she gets older which will mean you can disregard everything I just said!




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[cheerforeverever]

While exhausting, competing in multiple different sports lets an athlete pick up skills that are versatile across the board. There will come a time when she will have to choose (whether that be middle school, high school or college age), but she might as well enjoy learning as much as she can from everything she has the opportunity to do before one of those sports gets to that point. I cheered with a girl in college that had been a state champ powerlifter in high school (had never even competed with cheer until college, just did sideline and tumbling classes) & she was the strongest athlete I've ever known. She could fly, base, tumble, jump, you name it, she was amazing at it......even was the base for a 2-1-1 all girl pyramid at prob around 120-130 pounds because she was just so strong!

Your daughter is still quite young, so remind her that she has 7+ years to pick something to focus solely on, if she wants. The kids that are making cheer their life @ 11 may be burnt out by the time they are 16.....they will also feel lost if they don't cheer however, because it is all they have known. This can make for a very hard HS or college transition. It's good to have options, so that whatever your daughter chooses when the time comes, she will understand that while cheerleading can be amazing, it's not healthy to make it your entire world. At some point that world will come crashing down & those kids will have a hard time coping with that.

 

[MamaC]

Thank you! You all touched on so many different things and I plan on having her read this as well.