It’s been an incredibly busy season for athletes involved in trampoline and artistic gymnastics. From February til now there have been many competitions. Since February Family Day weekend there have been three major competitions for our oldest son. The highlight was two weeks ago at Provincials where he achieved his goals for this season by moving up, aka mobilizing, into the National levels in all three events: trampoline, Double-mini trampoline and tumbling. He also achieved fifth all around for both male and female athletes in British Columbia in the national level. WAHOO! This young man will now represent British Columbia at Nationals in July.

This letter is being crafted to all the parents of these hardworking athletes, including myself, who have achieved their goals in months, years or failed to reached them by a score of 0.1. Yes, this sport is won and lost on very fine margins. I am throwing out some advice from my background in Kinesiology today and topping it off with some insight from Education.

Please give your child a week or two or even a month where scores or wins/losses don’t come into account.

Read to them or have them read to themselves, if they don’t see it as a chore. You could even buy them a copy of their favourite graphic novel.

Put out some clay, play dough or slime for them to play or create with.

Do a puzzle together.

Have a kitchen dance party and play their favourite music.

Draw together. They could draw what they feel or what they see. We love the Art for Kids Hub Youtube channel as you can find almost anything you would like to draw with helpful video lessons that are geared for kids. Even I can follow these directions! It’s so fun!

Go for a hike in nature together. This is our favourite and we try to do this weekly throughout all seasons of the year.

Build something together – Do you have Lego? How about the project you have always been wanting to build together in the garage?

Last but not least, why not embrace an old classic and play the cloud game. Sit on your backs in the grass and look for pictures in the clouds?

And that’s it folks! I hope that these amazing gymnasts that compete with such incredible intensity can steal from this list to calm their nervous systems and create a body and mind that can compete for years and years to come. What an incredible sport. We put out children in gymnastics at 18 months to build physical literacy. We never thought nor imagined that we would be fortunate to have a gymnast in the family. What a fun and exciting new sport to learn about and ponder today post-competition.

Have a marvellous Monday everyone and love what you do.

xoxo Joanna