Cheerleading

[strantor]

Yes, you are being a stick in the mud. It’s our job as a parent to encourage and support our kids in the things they want to do, as long as they won’t endanger themselves. I am honest with my kids about what will happen based on the choices they make, but it is their decision on what they want to do. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean they won’t thrive and succeed at it. Cheerleading builds many skills, it’s as athletic as any sport, she will be working in a team, learning how to manage disappointment when things don’t go right. Those are all skills she needs to succeed in life.

I acknowledge that there are some positive aspects to cheerleading and some valuable life experiences to be gained but it is going to take to some serious mental gymnastics for me to convince myself that they outweigh the fact that it's all done in pursuit of glory, not for themselves (cheerleaders) but for another group who already has more glory than they know what to do with.

My son plays hockey, I used to ski, but my fall and winters for the past 11 years have been tied up with traveling every weekend to games all over the state, not being able to go away at Christmas because of tournaments, many doctors visits, etc. My son is now a senior in high school, his last season ends in a few weeks and I am going to miss it, a lot. I don’t wish for a second we did anything different.

I also went this route . All of my children (3) played sports . Baseball , soccer , basketball , football , lacrosse to name a few . We traveled the country for tournaments for family vacations for years , met many new friends , went to places we would never had seen , collected many memories . These were the best of times in my view . It has also led to employment for my daughter and contacts across the nation for my sons . My daughter coached her college basketball team for 3 years before working for the Lacrosse Hall of Fame presently .

Your stories sound awesome; the kind of stories I wish I could tell. Your kids chose to do something awesome that reflects their own awesomeness. I would gladly travel the country to support my daughter in any sport or endeavor that she does for herself, even if it is silly. Speed walking, competitive cup stacking, whatever; I would beam with pride. But that's not what my daughter has chosen.

If instead of traveling across the country with the hockey team because your kid was on it, you were traveling because your kid was a roadie/groupie for the hockey team and you knew the only reason they were involved was to earn points in a giant grotesque popularity contest that an ass-backwards society imposed on them and convinced them was important, would it be the same thing?

My daughter plays basketball and I look forward to watching her games each week. I'm sad when the season is over. If she wants to be involved in more extracurriculars, I would (I have) strongly encouraged another sport. Or journalism. Or band. Or anything, anything but cheerleading.

 

[mmcmdl]

delaware blue hen mascot - Google Search

ravens mascot poe - Google Search

My niece was both of the above . It took her to places none of us will ever see.

 

[Jubil]

Parenting is like the game or activities that are being discussed. We tackle the problems with our best effort. Enjoy our successes and lament our failures.
My wife and I guided our kids through those times, sometimes with a stern “no” and sometimes with “are you sure that’s what will make you happy”. It worked for us. But I know that it could have failed. A lot depends on the kid himself.
My own brother called me a hypocrite once because I was trying to guide my son away from some of the things that I had done. My answer, “I may be a hypocrite but if it keeps him alive and in good health then it’s a success.”
I wouldn’t try to tell someone how to raise their kids but I would tell them to always be there for them.
I think your answer was a good one.

Chuck

 

[strantor]

In case you couldn't tell, I'm taking time out of work to post here because I can't help myself. I'm too distracted to accomplish anything anyway.

you can't protect them from everything. as a matter of fact, you shouldn't.
they need to fail, they need to feel the pain to appreciate the victories, the hard work, the good times.

we protect our kids too much these days. Life can be hard, let your kid learn the lessons of life. Sometimes they may surprise you. Just be there when they need you, and give them space when they don't.

too many kids are immature, if you let them live, they grow up more mature and with a dose of reality.

I hear you and I agree. My previous reply about passing on our own lessons learned wasn't meant to imply that we should replace their own first hand experience, but merely supplement it. Point out the path we think they should take but not force them down it.

Ok, in the beginning, yes, force them down the path. I'm not going to let my toddler touch the stove element just so they have the opportunity to learn their own lesson. But as they get older, transitioning out of an authoritarian role and into more of an advisory role. I just maybe have trouble knowing where the line is between authoritarian and advisory, and when to offer advice and when to keep my opinions to myself or least remove them from the advice I give.

 

[mmcmdl]

Youth have learned to " think out of the box " these days , and they need to . These 40-45 year tenure jobs just don't exist any longer . Case in point . Video games . There's been more millioneers made over the past 2 decades from this than most routine jobs . Whooda thunked it ? Whatever road the kiddies may take , support them . Everything seems to work out in the end .

 

[strantor]

My experience is that if I had to use logical arguments on the kids, I was toast.

Yeah you've nailed it pretty squarely. Also applies to women (usually) and dogs (always).

You asked, so I am going to tell you what I think.

I don't think you had an honest open conversation about the matter with your daughter. You threw out a bunch of superficial negatives due to your past experiences instead of telling her what is really on your mind and listening to her feedback. [...] Listen to what she has to say. Don't trap her, give her a chance to think about it before she replies. Make it a discussion not an argument. [...] it is your turn to ask her what YOU can do to support HER? [...] If you are planning on being there for support with out the "I told you so" tell her that! Then STICK TO IT! Tell her that you will love her no matter "WHAT"! ...but there are several "what's" that you would really like both of you to steer around and avoid.

I can almost guarantee that the conversation as you described it went in one ear then out the other and probably pushed her into signing up for cheerleading more than making her think twice about it.
[...]

[...]

You're the parent, it is time for you to be the grown up one and establish a line of communication with her rather than being childish, dumping a bunch of crap about how useless cheerleading is on her and starting arguments... or worse yet pushing her away so that she never wants to have REAL conversations with you.

There are some pearls in there. I appreciate the advice and I will be giving this one a few re-reads.

I get that you are not actually saying no, but by forcefully pointing out why it is a bad idea, you are basically saying no. You are putting her in the position of challenging your judgement and risking having you think badly of her which is tough for a kid.

Thanks for calling me out on that. You're not wrong. And now that she's chosen to "defy" what I drew as tenuous "line" it will be harder for her if she decides it isn't something that she wants after all. Because giving it up will mean all the things it would otherwise mean, PLUS it would mean conceding that I was right. Of course I wouldn't say "told you so" but there would be a big silent mutually understood "told you so" banner flying between us.

As far as telling them not to touch a hot stove, its more like saying don't go water skiing. You know a lot of bad stuff could happen water skiing, people die water skiing, but it is fun. As for stay away from that kind of guy, my mother in law was told that about my father in law, in fact she was banished for several years for marrying him. They have now been married 40+ years.

Yeah this I am aware of also. She has a boyfriend and I have tried to walk a thin line between condemnation and the creation of forbidden fruit, and the lackadaisical allowance for anything that might happen, to happen.

You can't live your whole life wrapped in bubble wrap.

Now as a parent myself I will qualify this by saying I'm off to wrap my kid in bubble wrap. I get it, this parenting thing is tough. All we can do is try and do what we think is right without squashing their independence and their right to make mistakes.

Yeah, I'm on the same page; see previous reply to woodchucker. I think I've painted myself in the wrong light in this thread. I really don't think I'm an overprotective parent. I don't force knee pads and helmets on my kids. It's just this one thing, cheerleading, is something that (if you couldn't tell) I feel strongly about. It disgusts me that it is what it is. I think it's a travesty that it is promoted by the school and by the student body as the #1 way for a girl to be "cool."

It's like when my wife is in the mood for me to do something sweet for her. She can't tell me that she wants me to do something sweet, because if she does, and I comply, then that takes the sweetness out of it. She doesn't necessarily want me to do something sweet, she wants me to want to do something sweet.

I don't want her to not do cheerleading, I want her to not want to do cheerleading. But she does, and I can't change that. It does no good to forbid it, the battle is already lost.

 

[Winegrower]

I don't want her to not do cheerleading, I want her to not want to do cheerleading. But she does, and I can't change that. It does no good to forbid it, the battle is already lost.

Good insight! As Bob Dylan said, ”he won the war after losing every battle”. The war being we want our kids to love and respect us. This recognition advances you along that path.

 

[strantor]

delaware blue hen mascot - Google Search

ravens mascot poe - Google Search

My niece was both of the above . It took her to places none of us will ever see.

I see what you're doing there and I appreciate it, but I am not (at least not at this time) able to look at it like that. The same could be said of the traveling carnival but who looks forward to their kid running off to be a carney? That's not to liken your niece's mascot position to a circus act, but to say that just because a thing offers unique experiences doesn't make it a net positive endeavor. I assume it was a net positive endeavor for your niece, otherwise you wouldn't have posted, but something tells me hers is an Isolated case.

 

[mmcmdl]

It took her to Hollywood . You never know just who you'll meet in these " what I think is stupid " ideas . Let them do their own thinking , there's a time when you have to let go .

 

[strantor]

Ok, before I forcefully extricate myself from this conversation and get back to doing what I'm paid to do, I want to drop a new seed.

I said that I would be supportive if she decided to join. Then she joined. I was not expecting her to do that. Now I have to follow through. How do I do that? How do I support her doing something I absolutely don't believe in; something that fundamentally rubs me the wrong way?