The 2018 Arizona Cup is in the books and it was a disappointing tournament for our daughter. She qualified yesterday 26th out of 28th and went out in the first round of eliminations today. Just a complete and total lack of focus on her part.

It's been a rough tournament for all of us that really has me questioning my involvement in archery. It was a hell of an entrance fee to pay to have our daughter run around to socialize, ignore texts and phone calls from both myself and my wife and have her lie to us about where she was and what she was doing all to have her absolutely fail to perform.

I've never come down on her for scores or placement in a tournament. I don't really care how she finishes as long as she performed the best of her ability. The last 3 tournaments she has failed to do so. The wife and I are already talking that unless she can prove to us her commitment and show some dedication, we will not be spending the time and money to go to Outdoor Nationals in North Carolina this summer.

Archery has been a great sport for us, but if it's causing such discourse in my family, I'll chose my family over archery.

Hang in there brother. This is a tough age in the horse world as well - No real advice other than support her and see if she chooses to continue to pursue this or something else gets her attention. Our daughter is 15 now and is still very committed, but we know she could easily decide to quit at any time. She is working 10-12 hours most days (and just got home from living and working with a Grand Prix trainer in Lexington for 2 months) and already turned down her first real boy. He was pursuing her hard and she told him she just wanted to be friends because she didn't have time to 'go steady'. My wife is a trainer/coach and she loses a lot of young riders in the 12-14 age range.

We had some tough times when our daughter and swimming when she was about that age.

Sh went on to set a few state records, US Olympic Trials, full scholarship to a Div 1 SEC school, Sec championship evey year as well as NCAA Div 1 Championship every year.

She retired while at the NCAA Championships at Georgis Tech in 2016.

She completed her bachelors and masters of in accounting in 4 years while swimming.

Be her Dad, support and encourage her, and be firm when needed but, most of all, be Daddy.

Clamp down on that behavior ASAP and I'll bet you'll find out if she wants to be dedicated. Shoot her a text with a link to eBay with her bow on it. She needs to realize that this sort of involvement and support from parents is earned. If she doesn't want to do it anymore, fine.

She is at an age where it is easy to be distracted. Remember that she isn't an adult. Maybe her interest is flagging, but maybe it is just a just a moment of inattention.

Sorry to hear that.

As someone who used to volunteer in youth ministry, it was pretty unpredictable what would happen to a middile school / junior high girl when the hormones kicked in. Some just seemed to mature into a young woman; others turned into lying, manipulative, distracted, emotional wrecks; and most were in between.

Lying and manipulation need to be clamped down on by parents or it tends to lead to bad places.

I quit volunteering in the youth ministry before middile school / junior high kids had phones so no comment on ignoring texts and calls.

She may just need a break

Sometimes you need to crack the fucking whip.

Sometimes kids have had enough of a sport and aren’t mature enough to to tell their parents about it.

Sometimes kids are just stupid fucking kids.

Who cares more about this... the parent, or the child?

ignore texts and phone calls from both myself and my wife and have her lie to us about where she was and what she was doing

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Losing focus is one thing, she's a kid. But the behavior above needs to be nipped now. Lying to you is not okay.



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What was her punishment for lying to you?

Yeah, re-reading about the lying... She’d definitely be on the bench for awhile when it comes to archery and any other activity other than schoolwork and cleaning her room - if she was my kid.

I’ve cracked the whip on my kids from time to time, it doesn’t take long to get them to color between the lines again. But you need to follow through and let it sink in, real good - to the point they’ll fear it happening again next time they think about straying.

Please don’t take offense, could you be pushing too hard? Think about how you would react to this stress and schedule at her age.
She may just need a weekend to recharge, or maybe she is at the end.
Kids tend to take their parents for granted until they hit their early to mid 20s.
I also would not want to waste money and my time if she isn’t taking it seriously.
Keep us posted and good luck.

She is 12.

She may have been the perfect daughter for the last 11 years. She may very well be a perfect daughter again.

But at this moment, she is 12, and Hell is coming with her.

My opinion: This has little or nothing to do with archery or commitment and everything to do with being a 12-year-old girl.

Puberty is upon thee...

That is all...good luck.

Old Chinese proverb: Great calamity often presages great fortune.

Sorry to read this, friend.

You and your daughter have accomplished things together that I could only fantasize that one of my kids would put so much time into. I tried...and failed.

I’m very sorry to read about the lying and trust issues. The anger and frustration a parent feels when that happens must be compounded (no pun intended) quite a bit when you consider the money you are spending.

I’ll not be so bold as to tell you what you should do as a parent, but please permit me to ask a few questions?


- Is her behavior at this tourney a ‘one off’ or a habit that has become more and more noticeable?

- I’ve noticed over the past year that your posts have more frustration tied to them.

- Does she still want to do this, or is she doing it for you now?

Either way, it has been a good run and I’ve enjoyed your updates over the years.

Long conversation last night. She's going to be living without her phone and her electronics this week, she's grounded. From her reaction, you would think we sent her off to the showers at Aushwitz. I was actually thinking of being more evil. Not taking her electronics away, but taking away all of the charging cables. That way I could watch the shear panic as she tried to figure out how to ration charges on her devices and the expressions a 4 year old would make after dropping their ice cream cone as her individual devices died.

As far as archery goes, it's complicated and a work in progress. One of the international judges who lives locally once described our daughter as, "Four foot nothin' and afraid of nothin'." It's been a while since we've seen that attitude in her. We think it goes back to November when she was not selected for the US Olympic Dream Team. In her mind now, she's inferior to the girls that were selected for the team. She's been shooting against those girls now in her last 3 tournaments. In practice leading up to the Cup, she was absolutely killing it. In competition she was all over the target including 2 misses. Instead of pulling back her bow now with confidence that she can win, she now has doubts about whether she can.

We're going to work with her coach on it. We're also going to work with Opti International. Opti is a specialized firm that works on mental conditioning and training for athletes. We also made it clear that she's going to have to earn a trip to nationals by showing dedication and improvement in her training.

I also made it very clear that I have never come down on her for scores or podium finishes and hope that I never do. All I care about is that if she wants to compete at the top level is that she puts forth her best effort. I also told her that I realize archery is her thing and her social circle and that if she just wants to shoot recreationally that's fine as well.

She turns 13 at the end of the month and I'm sure hormones and all play into things as well. It seems ridiculous to have a mental coach for a 13 year old, but that's where we're at. Youth athletics has changed a lot since I was a kid and it was just pick up a ball, run out on the field and play. The easy thing to do would be to say, "Fuck it, I'm out, figure it out for yourself." But that would be giving up and going against the values we've been trying to instill in our daughter.

quote:

Originally posted by 2000Z-71:
Whole post

That may be the greatest overall post on parenting I have ever read on this site.

Well done dad, on all fronts!

Good luck. I have two daughters who were / are D1 athletes. The current one practices - off-season mind you - pretty much two hours- Every. Single. Day.

The process from middle school through high school and then through college is a rocky one. Filled with ups and downs.

The main thing is - as you well know - the kid needs to be able to say SHE is doing this because SHE wants to / loves it. Not because of family pressure. We had that conversation many times. Naturally some parental ego can creep in and you have to work to keep that in check.

Things are easy when you are winning. When you get hurt, lose, don't make a cut or whatever - that's when the angst sets in. And of course things change DRAMATICALLY when kids go through the puberty issues.

I would always come away and ask myself - if she quits tomorrow - have we put in an honest effort and learned something from the experience. If the answer was yes I figured we are on the right track.

Kids can get involved in SO MANY harmful activities these days - if she is doing okay with a good peer group - that alone is a good justification for the activity.

Good luck -

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