***2009-2010*** cheer parent thread!!

[mbfqueen]

Adorable!

This weekend is our comp in Tacoma, WA .. can't wait!

 

[wdwmom0f3]

Hi, I am new to all of this cheering thing. My DD has cheered for the Parks & Rec here since she was 6 but now we are moving on to Middle School. She is about to try out for the first time ever and I am a nervous wreck. She has been in cheernastics for two years and she is doing pretty good. She is now taking private lessons with a great coach. Our tryouts are on March 12th. I hope I can make it that long. I could use some support.

 

[kidzmom3]

Hi, I am new to all of this cheering thing. My DD has cheered for the Parks & Rec here since she was 6 but now we are moving on to Middle School. She is about to try out for the first time ever and I am a nervous wreck. She has been in cheernastics for two years and she is doing pretty good. She is now taking private lessons with a great coach. Our tryouts are on March 12th. I hope I can make it that long. I could use some support.

just try to be as supportive as possible. Can you find out what the typical cheerleader on the team has for skills? that will then give you a realistic view of whether or not she is likely to be chosen. For instance at our local high school every cheerleader has: a standing and running back handspring and must either have a standing back tuck or be very very close to one.

 

[mommy2allgirls]

mommy2allgirls, your team was at ACA in Ft. Worth over MLK weekend, right?

other teams from our gym might have been but our team wasn't. We have a competition this Saturday in Garland

 

[goofy!]

HI, I just found this thread can I join in? My dd is 4 years old and is on a special needs cheer team! She is loving it! She has her second competition this coming Saturday and she can't wait!

Here are some pictures from her last competition!

She is the blonde on the screen!

Her with her helper and her trophy

Her whole team

::Welcome::

Your daughter is absolutely adorable.

It is great to see another special needs team represented here. This is my daughter's 5th year on her team. It is truly her passion. She lives, breathes and talks nonstop about cheer. It has really been a gift in her life. We don't leave for Dallas for 17 more days, but she is just about all packed. We had our last competition before Nationals this weekend, so now her uniform, shoes and bow are ready to go in her carry on. I probably should get it out and wash it before we leave

You will have to keep us posted on how it goes.

Is your team coming to NCA Nationals?

I was thinking about this thread heading down to our competition yesterday. My niece (who is pretty much my other daughter) was so nervous, she threw up in the car on the way down. Then she felt fine and had amazing performances. Vomiting or not, there is absolutely no way you would be able to drag her away from cheer and find another sport. It was her first time cross competing, so she was nervous. If she wasn't so passionate about it and so involved in the sport, she wouldn't have been as nervous.

 

[wdwmom0f3]

just try to be as supportive as possible. Can you find out what the typical cheerleader on the team has for skills? that will then give you a realistic view of whether or not she is likely to be chosen. For instance at our local high school every cheerleader has: a standing and running back handspring and must either have a standing back tuck or be very very close to one.

Lindsey can do a running back handspring, she can get up to three, four with help. She can do one standing back handspring, like the rest of the girls, but we heard tonight that they may require a double standing back handspring. This is the first that we have heard of it and the girls are scared. The moms are too. Some of them are still having trouble sticking it, my DD included on some days. This is for middle school & I don't even think that the high school girls are required to do this. We should find out soon, but this is really getting stressful.

 

[mommy2allgirls]

goofy!, our team is not going to nationals. We only have two more comps this year one is in Garland this week and then the other one is in the city where our gym is. This is the first year this gym has done a special needs team so they didn't do many competitions but will do more next year probably because they have been such a hit and the kids love it. The gym is also starting a special needs gymnastics class

 

[ADisneyQueen]

This is my dd9's first year of cheering and I was wondering how they qualify for nationals. I think I heard the team qualifies almost every year. It is a rec team and the nat'l is in Cleveland. Can anyone explain this to me?

 

[goofy!]

This is my dd9's first year of cheering and I was wondering how they qualify for nationals. I think I heard the team qualifies almost every year. It is a rec team and the nat'l is in Cleveland. Can anyone explain this to me?

"Nationals" is a bit of a misnomer. There are a gazillion National (ok, only in the hundreds) competitions across the country during any given season. Any cheer company can offer as many "Nationals" as they want. For instance, the Jamfest brand is offering approximately 20 Nationals across the country this season.

You don't have to qualify for a Nationals, you just pay your money and go.

The difference between a regional competition and a Nationals is that a Nationals is usually a 2 day competition where you compete on 2 days and the combined score is your placement, whereas at a regional competition, you only compete once on one day and that is your score for the competition.

Now, that said, there are some Nationals that are more prestigious than other Nationals and are considered true Nationals in that they draw teams from all over the country. NCA in Dallas is considered by many the most prestigious and the true "Nationals", Cheersport in Atlanta is the largest Nationals (18,000+ cheerleaders when we were there last year) and Jamfest Indy, as well as some others, are right up there too.

There are only a handful of competitions that you actually have to qualify for. The most recognized one is Worlds, held at Disney each spring. This is considered by many in the cheer community to be the highest accomplishment if you have a Worlds team. Only level 5 teams go to Worlds. The Senior 5 teams earn bids at various Nationals. Not all Nationals offer World bids, so many gyms plan their Nationals trips to ones that give you the potential to earn that bid. There are several types of bids - fully paid bids where everything is paid for, including transportation, hotel, etc for the cheerleaders, partially paid bids and at large bids where you pay all your own expenses to get to Disney.

Recently though, to allow level 4 and under to have a season-ending major competition, US Finals and IALC were created. Again, you go to different competitions that offer bids. They are awarded by placement and score. If you earn a bid at a competition throughout the season, you are qualified to compete at US Finals or IALC.

 

[donnajon]

CheerSport this weekend! Can't wait!

 

[mommy2allgirls]

I was wondering if I could get some suggestions, maybe the mom with a daughter also on a special needs team might be able to understand. My dd is 4 and love love loves cheerleading. The only thing she is having a problem with is using pom poms. When we ask why she wont use them she says it is because they aren't yellow. Since she is on a special needs team they aren't forcing her to use them and it doesnt count against the team. I woudl like her to use them though to at least get over the fear of them not being the color she wants, she has OCD and sensory processing disorder. Any suggestions on how to help her get used to them?

 

[missypie]

other teams from our gym might have been but our team wasn't. We have a competition this Saturday in Garland

The big gym in Garland has some kind of cat name for all their teams so I thought it must have been yours.

 

[missypie]

This weekend is our comp in Tacoma, WA .. can't wait!

CheerSport this weekend! Can't wait!

Call me a horrible cheer mom, but I do not look forward to competitions at all...esp. during Nationals season when you go two days.

I spent years at dance competitions....you'd have tap then jazz then ballet then lyrical...some songs were fast, some were slow...lots of different styles, no two alike. Cheer competions are the ultimate in sensory overload....each routine having the same elements to loud frenetic music mashups. It is exhausting to me!

 

[goofy!]

CheerSport this weekend! Can't wait!

GOOD LUCK!

That is such a fun competition. I am kind of bummed my daughter's and niece's teams are not going this year. It is especially a great competition for the special needs teams as Cheersport hosts a dinner Saturday night upstairs in the ballroom for all the special needs teams and their families. It was so much fun last year meeting the athletes from all over the country.

Our C5 team will be there though.

 

[goofy!]

I was wondering if I could get some suggestions, maybe the mom with a daughter also on a special needs team might be able to understand. My dd is 4 and love love loves cheerleading. The only thing she is having a problem with is using pom poms. When we ask why she wont use them she says it is because they aren't yellow. Since she is on a special needs team they aren't forcing her to use them and it doesnt count against the team. I woudl like her to use them though to at least get over the fear of them not being the color she wants, she has OCD and sensory processing disorder. Any suggestions on how to help her get used to them?

Our team doesn't use poms so don't have any experience with it.

However, if the coaches don't mind and aren't forcing her, I would just let her have fun, especially at 4. Even the allstar tinies at that age are given some leeway in competitions.

Just keep offering the poms to her. Hopefully, she will pick them up once she gets used to the color. But if it were my child and the coaches don't mind, I would just spend this year just letting her love what she is doing without forcing the issue. As she becomes more experienced and learns more that cheer is a team routine, you can push things a bit harder and she will probably want to do the routine like the other kids.

 

[goofy!]

The big gym in Garland has some kind of cat name for all their teams so I thought it must have been yours.

They just started a special needs team this year. I can't wait to see them!

 

[missypie]

I think their special needs team is called the WonderKatz. They had these tiny tiny girls...all just adorable.

 

[mommy2allgirls]

Our team doesn't use poms so don't have any experience with it.

However, if the coaches don't mind and aren't forcing her, I would just let her have fun, especially at 4. Even the allstar tinies at that age are given some leeway in competitions.

Just keep offering the poms to her. Hopefully, she will pick them up once she gets used to the color. But if it were my child and the coaches don't mind, I would just spend this year just letting her love what she is doing without forcing the issue. As she becomes more experienced and learns more that cheer is a team routine, you can push things a bit harder and she will probably want to do the routine like the other kids.

Thank you, you are right! I appreciate the advice and I am going to take it!

 

[missypie]

Mommy2allgirls, have you read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time ? It's a novel about an autistic young man. It's really good. Anyway, the main character won't have anything to do with anything yellow or brown - reminded me of your D. The great thing about the book is that the boy is totally able to explain all of his "quirks" - in his mind, it's all logical.

 

[mommy2allgirls]

Mommy2allgirls, have you read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time ? It's a novel about an autistic young man. It's really good. Anyway, the main character won't have anything to do with anything yellow or brown - reminded me of your D. The great thing about the book is that the boy is totally able to explain all of his "quirks" - in his mind, it's all logical.

No, I haven't. I will need to read it though. Thanks for sharing!