All-Star Retirement???

[12stepCheermom]

Here's my unsolicited opinion. (It's a message forum right).

I don't see cliques on these boards just groups of like minded posters. Their minds differ but I see groups of people who generally think one way or another about topics. If you're around long enough you know what posts will churn the butter of what groups. It ain't rocket science.

Here you have one general group of like minded posters that are having a discussion regarding what the OP posted. For the record, whatever the OP intended for this thread to be...I don't think became that...which is where I think her defensiveness is coming from. I don't think it turned out the way she thought it was going to (whatever that was meant to be).

That doesn't make anyone right or wrong, it just makes it a discussion. Which is quite fitting on a discussion board.

And I use "hey" (personally) as a greeting all the time being that I'm from the South. But I don't do it when I respond to posters, when I quote them it's obvious I'm responding to them. I also know that there are multitudes of cultures on these boards (including many that aren't American and even more that have never been to Sheetz or WaWa) and even though "hey pebbles!" Is supposed to be a greeting, it comes off over the internet as snarky.


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[Just-a-Mom]

When I start my post with "Hey"- which is Southern greeting for "Hi"... I believe that I am greeting you by name, additionally, I have never ever argue with any posters, but I have been unjustly accuse, attack, etc, hence the reason why I walked away... I have reasons to walk away when I am unjustly told I start post to pump up my child and a spade(for a black woman from the South, this is offensive).. I never been on any boards, where the poster, who have been called names is told by others, that there is no reason to feel slighted... That is why I gave up, because it is clear to me that we have cliques on this site... When certain posters are able to call people names and are cheer on, something is wrong! Just saying!

I have never heard of calling a spade a spade being a racist saying, as I've always heard it to mean something totally different. However, after you posted this I looked it up to see what you are talking about. So now I've learned something new, and I apologize. I certainly didn't mean to offend you.

(Side note, my daughter is black, so please don't throw the word racist my way. It's equally as offensive. Also, your "Hey so-n-so" posts do come off rude, and saying you're from the south doesn't fix it. Does saying I'm from the north take away the offensiveness of anything I say? Lastly, how would we know that you say "hey" because you're from the south when you're talking about being from world cup (which is definitely not the south)?)

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[ACEDAD]

I'm impressed that someone got pissed off enough to leave in less than 4 pages.


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[TheVipersMom]

@pebbles49

Do you feel like these kids thinking of retirement are the kids who mastered all skills so young and have nothing to look forward to?

Or are these the kids without level 4/5 tumbling/jumps that are just on the team to base that are thinking of retiring? Is it possible these kids are on y5 for this team but once they age out of youth they will be bumped to a j3 or s3 and they just don't want to be moved down (not that it's a bad thing my kid is on a lower level and loves it) but I can understand how it would be harder to move down after competing at a higher level especially on a well known team like twinkles?


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[Pebbles49]

@pebbles49

Do you feel like these kids thinking of retirement are the kids who mastered all skills so young and have nothing to look forward to?

Or are these the kids without level 4/5 tumbling/jumps that are just on the team to base that are thinking of retiring? Is it possible these kids are on y5 for this team but once they age out of youth they will be bumped to a j3 or s3 and they just don't want to be moved down (not that it's a bad thing my kid is on a lower level and loves it) but I can understand how it would be harder to move down after competing at a higher level especially on a well known team like twinkles?


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Hey Kris10boo,
Thank you for getting the post back on track and the real intent that I was thinking of when started... Yes, these were the inquiries and things I was pondering when I was listening to these young people talking about early retirements,,, when these kids were not moved to that next rung on that food chain, they turned and ran from the sport... As a parent, I thought that these athletes should have been possibly talked into facing things they fear most and not high tail it to the hills... Additionally, that was the reason I started the second thread - a Dream Deferred, these same athletes have rose up the food chain quickly, I wanted to know what happens when a cheer dream must be deferred?

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, my daughter 1st season, she started her cheer career on a successful Jr 2 team that won a lot of accolade, jackets and awards - but at the end of the season, none of these athletes wanted to retired and everyone were eager to move to the next level and start over again for that next winning season and/or adventure...
So I was so mystified when the opposite reaction happened and foolishly thought this could be an interesting topic to discuss on FierceBoard for answers to the questions I had...
PS:
Again, I will mentioned my daughter in this scenario, She will be aging off of Twinkles next year, what will be her reaction, if she does not make it through the Twinkles-Starlite-Stars route, how will she handled her dream being deferred? Most importantly, as her parent, how should I counsel her through this issue...

 

[12stepCheermom]

As a parent, I thought that these athletes should have been possibly talked into facing things they fear most and not high tail it to the hills... Additionally, that was the reason I started the second thread - a Dream Deferred, these same athletes have rose up the food chain quickly, I wanted to know what happens when a cheer dream must be deferred?

So I was so mystified when the opposite reaction happened and foolishly thought this could be an interesting topic to discuss on FierceBoard for answers to the questions I had...

A few thoughts.

To the first part here... Any parent who decides to talk their kid out of high tailing it to the hills needs to read my open letter to Susie Moms thread. There's a sobering reality for what happens to young talented athletes when their SM parents can't leave well enough alone and just let them be kids first. The kids you're talking about are youth age. Cheer won't be a career. It won't be a free ticket to a college education and frankly no one outside the Allstar world even "gets" what they do when they get to high school so it's counterintuitive how SMs of young kids are so over the top about ensuring their kid is the best of the best. I know, I was one. It's why I wrote that cautionary thread.

To the second part, it did start as a discussion here. The general gist of the responses were "kids change their minds, pressure at level 5 is different etc" for whatever reason you got very defensive over most of those general discussion postings and the thread spun out of control. Not sure what you expected everyone to say and I still can't understand why you got upset over the discussion that did occur.

I didn't quote the other part about dreams deferred, but I'm curious. You said your daughter was on J2 and is now aging off Twinkles (or will be). Were there several years between those? Just wondering her skill level and if she's a level 5 athlete that was part of that very successful J2 or if she's got level 2 skills and served some other purpose (like basing or backing) on level 5? One gets us back to the GP/YE debate (or better since GP is level 3) and the other means she might need to add steps to her dream if she wants stars but as an aging up junior only has (current) level two skills.

I'm feeling like were having this general discussion about "all these other kids" when you are really interested in just talking about yours....which is fine...but let's just cut to the chase and have a discussion about what you really want to talk about and stop beating around the bush. This is a good place for advice but you have to be prepared to be objective about it as it relates to your cp.


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[Pebbles49]

A few thoughts.

To the first part here... Any parent who decides to talk their kid out of high tailing it to the hills needs to read my open letter to Susie Moms thread. There's a sobering reality for what happens to young talented athletes when their SM parents can't leave well enough alone and just let them be kids first. The kids you're talking about are youth age. Cheer won't be a career. It won't be a free ticket to a college education and frankly no one outside the Allstar world even "gets" what they do when they get to high school so it's counterintuitive how SMs of young kids are so over the top about ensuring their kid is the best of the best. I know, I was one. It's why I wrote that cautionary thread.

To the second part, it did start as a discussion here. The general gist of the responses were "kids change their minds, pressure at level 5 is different etc" for whatever reason you got very defensive over most of those general discussion postings and the thread spun out of control. Not sure what you expected everyone to say and I still can't understand why you got upset over the discussion that did occur.

I didn't quote the other part about dreams deferred, but I'm curious. You said your daughter was on J2 and is now aging off Twinkles (or will be). Were there several years between those? Just wondering her skill level and if she's a level 5 athlete that was part of that very successful J2 or if she's got level 2 skills and served some other purpose (like basing or backing) on level 5? One gets us back to the GP/YE debate (or better since GP is level 3) and the other means she might need to add steps to her dream if she wants stars but as an aging up junior only has (current) level two skills.

I'm feeling like were having this general discussion about "all these other kids" when you are really interested in just talking about yours....which is fine...but let's just cut to the chase and have a discussion about what you really want to talk about and stop beating around the bush. This is a good place for advice but you have to be prepared to be objective about it as it relates to your cp.


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Hello 12step CheerMom,
Wow, I wholeheartedly agree with all your statements, in fact, you answered all my inquiries... Thank you for your brilliance!

 

[Cheer Dad]

Sarcasm alert??????


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[Cheer Dad]

@pebbles, maybe the simple solution is to only set one dream/goal at a time. If cp is really a y2 athlete don't talk about SS as the next step keep it simple like S2 or Y3. If cp was fortunate enough to help out on Y5 but not have all the skills then consider that a bonus. A lot of time more anxiety and the feeling of having to progress to quickly and ultimate disappointment comes from the young kids feeding off the parents desires.

As for the rest, any time a parent or coach mentions 'fast tracking' of SA route just smile and say well see where the future takes us.


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[12stepCheermom]

Sarcasm alert??????


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I'm fluent in sarcasm and I surely didn't miss it. Wow. So much for trying to have that "discussion." I'm beginning to think the poster might actually be the kid (if only for the maturity of response) and I don't want to be that person that isn't professional with a kid so I believe I'm done here.


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[Pebbles49]

Hey Cheer Dad.
Thank you for your insightful advice, but I feel like this is a mute point now, whenever I ponder or have inquiries, I am accuse of having ulterior motives... People ask me a slew of questions concerning and when I answer those questions I am slammed, called names, what is the point? ... Like I say before in other posts, my daughter chose this sport, which up to 3 years ago, I knew nothing about and if I was such the pushy mom that I have been accused so fervently of being, in my perfect world, she will still be doing gymnastics and/or playing basketball, but cheerleading is what she wants...

 

[Cheer Dad]

Pebbles, I think the issue here that got this thread derailed and you feeling attacked is that for a lot of us (including other members of WC) your comment of fast tracking or routing athletes towards SS, of other L5 teams, and maybe other statements in different threads goes against what a lot of us knowing and experiencing with WC.

A gym like WC, CEA, CA, do not get to be successful by trying to push certain kids to L5 teams and potentially ignore others, Just sets kids up for failure and could possible omit kids who develop late.

Over the years a lot of people have come on here with the intention of promoting their kids to the public for the purposes of cheerlebrity status. That is not right and for whatever reason I know a couple of people had that vibe.

Not trying to be rude here just offering my .02 on it.


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[Pebbles49]

Yes CheerDad, I have been falsely accused of introducing the scenarios or routes
... When someone else outlined those steps and there were no repercussions, but I mentioned and repeated them I was told that is not WC stand for, I don't get it.....I merely verbalized what I noticed as a new person in this cheer world... We do not live in a perfect world and even if things are not said out loud, as a newcomer , I judge based on what goes on.... Again, I want to reiterate I've only been at this gym for 1 year, so I was surprised by seeing how a group of young athletes(all aging out) that did not appear to be burnt out, but appeared to be unsure and afraid of their futures in the sport...and I was curious to know how often this happen...is this a yearly event? I pondered this, because I was at another gym and I did not witnessed this mass exodus of aging out athletes on this level...
PS: This is only my daughter's second team since starting AS, so maybe this is not unusual...

 

[Pip22]

Yes CheerDad, I have been falsely accused of introducing the scenarios or routes
... When someone else outlined those steps and there were no repercussions, but I mentioned and repeated them I was told that is not WC stand for, I don't get it.....I merely verbalized what I noticed as a new person in this cheer world... We do not live in a perfect world and even if things are not said out loud, as a newcomer , I judge based on what goes on.... Again, I want to reiterate I've only been at this gym for 1 year, so I was surprised by seeing how a group of young athletes(all aging out) that did not appear to be burnt out, but appeared to be unsure and afraid of their futures in the sport...and I was curious to know how often this happen...is this a yearly event? I pondered this, because I was at another gym and I did not witnessed this mass exodus of aging out athletes on this level...
PS: This is only my daughter's second team since starting AS, so maybe this is not unusual...

I really think the issue here is semantics. You used the word 'fast' which insinuates that your CP is being treated different, when other posters have said that several athletes at the gym are able to go down the route of Twinkle-Starlite-Worlds Team, which sounds more like the 'World Cup Way' of encouraging lots of athletes to progress and meet their full potential. I do understand from other posts that your CP had progressed within the sport in a short amount of time so perhaps you mean that she is looking to go down the level 5 route quicker than anyone would have predicted when she started?. I think wires have just been crossed... or at least I hope so.

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[JuniorFusionFire]

Pebbles, I think the issue here that got this thread derailed and you feeling attacked is that for a lot of us (including other members of WC) your comment of fast tracking or routing athletes towards SS, of other L5 teams, and maybe other statements in different threads goes against what a lot of us knowing and experiencing with WC.

A gym like WC, CEA, CA, do not get to be successful by trying to push certain kids to L5 teams and potentially ignore others, Just sets kids up for failure and could possible omit kids who develop late.

Over the years a lot of people have come on here with the intention of promoting their kids to the public for the purposes of cheerlebrity status. That is not right and for whatever reason I know a couple of people had that

Not trying to be rude here just offering my .02 on it.

ETA: OP is confirmed to be real, but the story isstill very inconsistent.

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I'm not directly responding to you, but your post (and this thread) made me jump. I may come across as rude, but I think the OP might be a troll. She never answers any questions directed at her, there are many inconsistencies within her story, she becomes defensive over the smalleat comments, and the situation feels like it is made up. The thread started out well, but as you move on it becomes more fake and fake. This is simply a speculation of mine, but I could be completely wrong.

ETA: Poster is confirmed to be real, but she is still allover the place.