Calm for gymnastics?

[Pattiann1981]

My five-year-old son has his first gymnastics class tomorrow. is there anything that I can do or give him beforehand to help him be a little more calm? he is not on medication. I'm a little worried about his emotions too he's very emotional. I'm feeling excited that he wants to get involved in something, but nervous for him because I don't know how it is going to go.

[Grandma01]

I believe that if this something he wants to do he will do it with grace. If this is a therapeutic recreation program then the know what to do. Don't try to anticipate his behavior. Your roll is to help him enjoy the experience. Should he have some behavior issue let the instructor handle it, you will only upset yourself.

We put grandson in Karate also 2 years ago, the first six months or so was great, he earn his yellow belt, things got a little more challenging as he worked to earn strips for his yellow belt, we would get upset and yell, then we gave him breaks on class time. We thought many times why not pull him out he doesn't want to participate anymore and he told us that too, but he kept taking him because he needed that discipline and interaction with the other children his age. We did it because once he got there he was fine. The instructors handled their part by taking away his belt when he got to far out of focus and didn't listen to instruction. Yes, it was hard but we made it to orange belt, where is is now among the leaders and in front row. They constantly remind him that he is higher rank and needs to act his rank. Amazingly his has not lost his belt, no been sent to the back row with the while belts or lower rank.

I was just telling my daughter last night, he has been more focused than ever before. The distractions he is able to handle and pull himself back to focus during his private lessons and in class.

We had no idea what we were dealing with until recently, we thought it was just bad behavior, none of the other children were acting out like that, many came and passed him up in rank, we didn't understand and thought they were picking on him and when we question the elder Sense'si the explained that he had to earn his belt and rank, it was not going to be given just because we wanted it and paying a lot of money for his training.

Point is let him enjoy the experience, work with the instructors to encourage good behavior. From personal experience back off him a little wiggle room and he will grow. Watch from a safe distance and you will see progress. I had to leave the dojo and let them teach him how to focus on his craft and I keep a safe distance while he does him swim class and behavior issue there.

Enjoy you activities.

[Pattiann1981 in reply to Grandma01]

Thank you this is very helpful!😊

[Cjkchamp]

Good luck! I put my son in and they couldn’t keep him on task. There was music and so many kids in the gym he wanted to run everywhere. I had to finally pull him after he kicked a little girl and was screaming to the point everyone was watching. All you can do is try. If it doesn’t work out it’s not the end of the world and you move on to something else. My son wants to do swimming now. We will see!

[jdharvey]

Have you tried magnesium yet? There are couple good ones out there for children like nature’s calm, or ANIMAL PARADE CHILDRENS MAGNESIUM. Magnesium is just a vitamin and my daughters psychologist suggested it. Hang in there and hope you guys find a way to make it easier. Anxiety and ADHD go hand in hand

[Grandma01]

I wanted to know how your first class went!

[Pattiann1981 in reply to Grandma01]

Hi it actually went very well thanks for asking! We went over a few things before class like listening and hands to ourselves. I was very proud of him!

[Grandma01]

Glad to hear it.