Gymnastics No-No.

Ian takes gymnastics (2 hours each, 2x a week) and normally, I drop him off and Jeff picks up after class is over.  Since Sam has been taking a 1 hour gymnastics class now on Wednesdays, it makes more sense for me to stay for the two hours during one of Ian's practices. 

I was in a for a real eye-opener this past Wednesday.  Ian is in a class of 13 boys (this is a tad more than the 8 to 10 boys recommended) and they have tons of energy.  Ian was misbehaving and acting up during class, along with a good portion of his teammates.  Ian wasn't focused and not putting forth any kind of effort.  And the icing on the cake was the non-stop complaining on how he was hot and tired.  Lovely, right?  

Ian's coach is awesome and always complimenting me on what a nice boy and how well-mannered he is.  So surely Ian can't always be like this, right?   I was very frustrated with how the class was going.  After a little more than an hour, I decided to pull Ian from the rest of the class.  I couldn't watch his goofing around and lack of effort any more. 

We still had another 45 minutes to wait for Sam to finish her class.  I used this time to tell Ian how disappointed I was.  I don't need him to be perfect, but I do need him to try.  After the class was over, I went over to talk to his coach and let her know why I took Ian out abruptly.  I wanted her to know I knew Ian was misbehaving and I couldn't stand to watch it anymore.  The kids who did want to be there deserve her attention and help.   Meanwhile, Ian is standing off to the side of me and saying over and over again, "I just want to quit.  I don't want to be here anymore."   I think he was horrified I was talking to his teacher about him.  Ian's coach told me that during class he said, "I hope I make team."   So which is it Ian?  You want to make team or you want to quit?  Because you can't have it both ways.

When we got home, more was discussed between Ian, Jeff and me and how we expect him to behave and try.  And I told Ian to give it a long hard thought on if he wants to continue.  I wasn't going to be paying the kind of money we are spending to send him to gymnastics if he didn't want to be there.

The next day (Thursday), Ian comes to me and says, yes, he wants to continue with gymnastics.  And we came up with the idea to call his coach and apologize to her.  Ian left her a very sweet message that he came up with all on his own (I volunteered to roll play the telephone call first and he said no). 

"Hi, this is Ian Toppall.  I am sorry about gymnastics yesterday.  I was disrespectful to you and it won't happen again.  Please forgive me."

As Ian is leaving this message, his voice is getting higher pitched and shaky.  Clearly he was nervous.

I am extremely proud of Ian.  He made a "wrong" right.  Reports are coming back from his teacher that he is back to doing wonderfully and really trying.  Yay!