Teri JohnsonFive things you need to know if your kid is competing in this year’s Summer Olympics (and even if she’s not)
By Teri JohnsonWest Des Moines, Iowa
August 8, 2008—opening day of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. I’ll be watching my 16-year-old daughter, Shawn, enter the stadium with nearly 600 American athletes. I never imagined Shawn would get this far when I enrolled her, at age three, in a gymnastics class in Urbandale, near where we live in Iowa.
I’ve been asked what I did to raise an Olympic athlete, but I don’t think I’m different from most parents. Shawn’s got a curfew like any other kid. If anything, Shawn’s helped me be a better mom and helped me learn to trust that God watches over us. Here are five things I learned about raising an Olympian that can help any parent.
Follow their lead.
It’s hard to believe, watching her today, that Shawn almost didn’t make it out of the delivery room. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. Doctors told me it was a close call. My husband, Doug, and I call it a miracle.
But Shawn wasn’t slowed by her scary start. In fact, I could barely keep up with her. She walked at nine months. By age two she needed stitches after banging her head while running in the house. She climbed into the cabinets where we kept her toys. More than once I found her teetering on a stack of toys she’d erected in order to reach ones higher up on the shelf. I prayed we’d find a safe way for her to use up that energy. We entered her in a tumbling class then a dance class, but she was bored by them.
One day I walked into the kitchen in time to see Shawn leap from our table into Doug’s arms. I wasn’t thrilled with her new stunt, but it stirred an idea. I took her to gymnastics. It clicked—Shawn loved running, climbing, leaping from great heights. At least there were plenty of mats if she fell.
The first day I stood off to the side, watching her as she scampered across the balance beam. She’d found her niche. My daughter showed me what she liked to do—I just drove her to the place where she could do it.
Find the right mentor.
The only problem she had in her gymnastics class was that she drove the instructors crazy. When the class sat down to learn about an exercise, Shawn would wander off to the balance beam. Or she’d have so much fun she’d run to the front of the line. The instructors always scolded her: “Shawn, get back here!” “No, Shawn, wait your turn.”
When Shawn was six, we checked out a new gymnastics school that had opened in our town. It was small and didn’t have many students. The owner of the gym, Coach Chow, introduced himself.
“So you like gymnastics, huh?” he asked Shawn. She nodded. “What’s your favorite event?”
“The balance beam,” Shawn answered.
They kept chatting as he showed us around. I was amazed at how well they got along. Then Shawn had to wait her turn for the beam. She fidgeted then stepped out of line and moved to a mat, performing a perfect cartwheel. I shook my head. But instead of scolding her, Coach Chow laughed. “I love her energy. That’s what you need in this sport.”
He knew what he was talking about. He’d competed for China’s national team in the 1980s and, after moving to the States, coached gymnastics at the University of Iowa. All that experience gave him the ability to see potential in Shawn. He kept her interest by keeping her challenged. In Shawn’s first week with Coach Chow, she learned to perform a back handspring.
“I didn’t know you could do that!” I said.
“Neither did I,” Shawn said. Only Coach Chow did.
Root for them—not for victory.
Coach Chow placed Shawn in the pre-teen advanced group, which competed against other gyms. For the first time, I had doubts. I’d seen other girls break down when they didn’t win. I didn’t want that to be Shawn. I sat in the stands at her first meet. She looked so tiny, dwarfed by the older, more experienced competitors. She’ll never keep up, I thought.
The other girls performed flips and jumps with ease. Shawn could barely get off the ground. Every step she took, every leap she made, was filled with enthusiasm, but the judges kept taking away points for missed landings, poorly executed techniques. Even so, the crowd loved her, clapping and cheering on her bubbly energy.
Shawn finished in twelfth place, and I was upset. Not because I wasn’t proud of her, who’d done better than expected against the more experienced girls, but because I worried she’d be discouraged by the results.
“That was fun!” Shawn said, proudly displaying her twelfth-place ribbon. She wasn’t upset. Neither was I, anymore. This wasn’t about winning to her —it was about showing what she could do.
Don’t decide, guide.
When Shawn was 12, she was invited to join the U.S. junior team. The practice schedule was intense—especially on top of her schedule outside the gym. She studied two hours a night, getting all As. She wrote short stories and poetry, joined the yearbook committee, even volunteered to walk dogs at a shelter. Sometimes it seemed like too much. I thought it might be better for her to quit gymnastics. One afternoon before practice I found her in her room, crying. “I don’t want to go,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
I sat down and put my arm around her. “You don’t have to go,” I said.
“Coach Chow will be disappointed in me. The team will too.” She didn’t say it, but I could hear her next thought: You’ll be disappointed in me. After my worries about her workload, I had the perfect opportunity to tell her to quit, but I couldn’t. Gymnastics was no longer my way to channel her energy. It had become a part of her. This was her choice, not mine.
“You’re doing this for you,” I said. “Mr. Chow will go on coaching whether you’re with him or not. Just make sure you’re quitting because you want to, not because you’re having a bad day. I’ll support you either way.”
She wiped her tears. “Thanks, Mom,” she said, and gave me a big hug. Thank you, Lord, for giving me just the right daughter, high energy and all. Shawn was back with the team the next day. And I felt better knowing it was her decision.
Trust.
At 13 Shawn qualified for her first international competition—in Belgium. It would be the first trip out of the States for all of us. Maddeningly, U.S. team rules stated we couldn’t travel with our daughter (the team traveled as a team). By the time Doug and I took our seats in the arena the day of the competition, I was a wreck. I scanned the floor. Gymnasts dotted the blue mats. And there was Shawn, entering through the tunnel with the team, her eyes scanning the stands. She spotted us and gave us a big wave. Lord, she really has grown up a lot. Thank you for being with her when we can’t.
The competition was about to begin. My heart beat wildly. The way Shawn’s 90-pound body catapults through the air on the uneven bars, flips upside-down inches above the balance beam makes me hold my breath each time. I said the prayer I always say before Shawn’s meets. Please get Shawn through this safely. She looked so poised, focused. Was this the same daughter I was so worried about?
I shook my head, amazed at the new heights Shawn reached dismounting the vault and flying off the bars. She was leaping off apparatus much higher than our table—without her dad to catch her. I had to trust she’d land safely. She did, each time. Shawn placed first on vault and floor and won the all-around competition.
That didn’t mean I stopped worrying about her. I still do. I’m not making her curfew an hour later, even if she wins gold in Beijing. But if it’s one thing my daughter has shown me, it’s that the best way to be a parent to her is to trust—in her and in God. Shawn was given a gift. I’ll be by her side to help her use it. Isn’t that what we parents are here to do?
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