Boys Vs Girls In Cheer

[Cheerleaderpastandfuture]

I observe a lot over the years and I have come to realize in this recent year, that boys are kind of the short-end when it comes to cheer. In tumbling classes, for example, I have noticed the coaches will work more with the girls than the boys; the boys get bored and the parents get an earful that they are not ready to be in a tumbling class. Again this is what I observed.
Why don't they have a coach who can work with boys and get their skills up? Or teach the kids equal. Boys and girls learn the same.
Now when a boy is on a level 4 and 5 team, they have awesome skills but if they are on a level 1 or level 2 team, they are needed for backspot and nothing else. At least what I have seen. It isn't fair, because the parents pay that money for the kids to learn. Does anyone else notice this?

 

[Cheer Dad]

I observe a lot over the years and I have come to realize in this recent year, that boys are kind of the short-end when it comes to cheer. In tumbling classes, for example, I have noticed the coaches will work more with the girls than the boys; the boys get bored and the parents get an earful that they are not ready to be in a tumbling class. Again this is what I observed.
Why don't they have a coach who can work with boys and get their skills up? Or teach the kids equal. Boys and girls learn the same.
Now when a boy is on a level 4 and 5 team, they have awesome skills but if they are on a level 1 or level 2 team, they are needed for backspot and nothing else. At least what I have seen. It isn't fair, because the parents pay that money for the kids to learn. Does anyone else notice this?

Maybe to a degree the younger boys are ignored a bit but my experience is all boys have been given the same opportunities to learn and be coached. I actually do not know a single boy just relegated to being a backspot.

For the record, boys do tend to be backspots because of height and some times strength.


**Silly owner, that's NOT how the big gyms really do it**

 

[amy1k]

I suspect level 1 and 2 tumbling can be more difficult for boys. If that's what you're trying to say. The boys on our higher level teams can't do walkovers and struggle with handsprings, often.

 

[Michael White]

To be honest, guys progress more rapidly than girls, and usually have less fear throwing the skill, and asking for a spot (your experiences may vary). It's not unheard of for a guy to go from 0 tumbling to level 5 skills in a couple of years, (3 examples in my all star gym in Maine, 2 others with level 4 skills after 2 years.). If a guy has ability, he's going to get tumbling.

 

[amy1k]

Most of the boys at my daughter's gym came with prior tumbling. They're a small gym, with only three senior age boys currently. All three of them had level four tumbling when they arrived. The two that are on their second year now have level 5 tumbling. They did parkour/tricking previously. None had prior cheer experience.

 

[SL&AM]

We have 3 boys on our Tiny teams and 1 on our Mini team; out coaches/owners are both male and have cheered themselves, I don't see any male athlete getting ignored in our gym. Or any gym we've been at, tbh, they're like unicorns---once you find one you keep them for life!

 

[Cheerhastakenovermylife]

We have 3 boys on our Tiny teams and 1 on our Mini team; out coaches/owners are both male and have cheered themselves, I don't see any male athlete getting ignored in our gym. Or any gym we've been at, tbh, they're like unicorns---once you find one you keep them for life!

I agree the 2 senior boys in our gym are treated like gods.

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[Pebbles49]

@SL&AM, I have to agree with your statement... I noticed just the opposite, in regards to the attention boys get over the girls. In my opinion, it is excessive and many ways I will classified as possible favoritism, especially, if they already come in with natural abilities, (Hint:Tumbling)...Matter of fact, I still remembered the year my daughter bought one of the boys from the neighborhood to 'bring a friend to practice' day...Wow, Coaches came from everywhere to watch this little golden unicorn, especially, when he started doing crazy untrained tumbling...

 

[Cheer Dad]

The more I think of this, I will kind of agree with the OP on 1 thing and in hindsight cp went through this. As a kid just getting into all stars he was not necessarily ignored for tumbling instructions but he was so active and energetic (read as annoying as heck) the coaches could only handle him in small doses so interaction was limited but they certainly worked with him.


**Silly owner, that's NOT how the big gyms really do it**

 

[Cheerleaderpastandfuture]

The more I think of this, I will kind of agree with the OP on 1 thing and in hindsight cp went through this. As a kid just getting into all stars he was not necessarily ignored for tumbling instructions but he was so active and energetic (read as annoying as heck) the coaches could only handle him in small doses so interaction was limited but they certainly worked with him.


**Silly owner, that's NOT how the big gyms really do it**

why don't they have a class just for boys? They want to learn and I have seen that some boys just need to be active and when the class is constantly sitting most of the hour, the boy (or any young kid lol) loses interest and pays attention to the older kids, then gets yelled at; or if there is a group of 18 kids on the team and there is one boy, the boy get yelled at the most, even when he isn't doing much wrong lol like if a girl or a group of girls are chatting, playing and not listening they are not getting yelled at. If the boy is not paying attention because they are sitting around, or tells the girl "leave me alone please" he get yelled at the most lol. This is what I observed.

 

[cheer25mom]

We see 100% the opposite. Because boys are rare they are definitely given more attention than the girls. Coaches often come in and work with them for free in an attempt to keep them. It is not uncommon in our area for boys to get free uniforms and reduced tuition.

 

[cheer25mom]

why don't they have a class just for boys? They want to learn and I have seen that some boys just need to be active and when the class is constantly sitting most of the hour, the boy (or any young kid lol) loses interest and pays attention to the older kids, then gets yelled at; or if there is a group of 18 kids on the team and there is one boy, the boy get yelled at the most, even when he isn't doing much wrong lol like if a girl or a group of girls are chatting, playing and not listening they are not getting yelled at. If the boy is not paying attention because they are sitting around, or tells the girl "leave me alone please" he get yelled at the most lol. This is what I observed.

Sounds to me like you have some kind of bad personal experience with this, because that is certainly not the norm. As I said above, boys are definitely not treated this way in any of our local programs. They are catered to in an attempt to keep them.

 

[Cheer Dad]

why don't they have a class just for boys? They want to learn and I have seen that some boys just need to be active and when the class is constantly sitting most of the hour, the boy (or any young kid lol) loses interest and pays attention to the older kids, then gets yelled at; or if there is a group of 18 kids on the team and there is one boy, the boy get yelled at the most, even when he isn't doing much wrong lol like if a girl or a group of girls are chatting, playing and not listening they are not getting yelled at. If the boy is not paying attention because they are sitting around, or tells the girl "leave me alone please" he get yelled at the most lol. This is what I observed.

I'm thinking you may be at the wrong program.

Cost wise for most programs it is not feasible to cater towards just the boys. Just isn't enough of them. That and if you create special classes just for them how do they learn to behave and interact appropriately during team practices?

An observation I have is that some programs are so few boys they just don't know how to work with them and it is a learning curve for all. We were fortunate in that cp's coaches set guidelines and expectations for him which he worked on. They also learned that sometimes he just needed to expend great amounts of energy and they let him go.




**Silly owner, that's NOT how the big gyms really do it**

 

[DonnaM]

I've seen some teams with male flyers in competitive rec, especially at the ages where girls have started to shoot up height-wise, but the boys haven't yet. On those teams, boys usually end up in the center of the routine and get a lot of attention.