Hi All!
i have a 14 yr old daughter who has been swimming with a USA swimming club for about 1.5yrs now. She is the only person in our family to swim, so naturally I feel in a bit over my head at times, though she seems to fit in well in the swimming world. I’m not sure how my daughter ranks against her peers, or her just others in her age group for that matter, nor what is a “good time” or “bad time”. So I’m wondering what I can do to be a “good swim parent”, how far do I go when she adds time and how happy should I be when she drops a little time? Thanks for all your help! I’ve put a couple of her short course times below.
200 freestyle: 2:03.11
100 freestyle: 57.51
50 Freestyle: 26.19
100 backstroke: 1:04.03
200 backstroke: 2:15.90
100 Butterfly: 1:03.13
200 butterfly: 2:22.78
100 ***: 1:17.66
200 IM: 2:20.12
She's in the same age group as my daughters. She has some pretty solid A times, and some AA times. The A times are often pretty close to the LSC championship cuts, and the AA times are often close to Sectional cuts. I would say that she's doing incredibly well for only being in it for 1.5 years. Some kids can come in when she did, and crush it, but it is not that common. Let me say a couple of things before I show you another cool resource. First, she needs to be happy doing this. She'll make great friends and have strong bonds. She'll learn about hard work, time management, sportsmanship, etc. Those are far more important results than the times. She'll carry those forward for the rest of her life, regardless of if she swims in the future or not. Second of all, one of the great things about swimming is that one doesn't need to always have an opponent to measure success. Her progress can be evaluated against her old times, or as she improves her Power Point totals, or as she moves up the Motivational Time chart.
That said, one of the more useful tools I have found is www.swimmingrank.com. You can see where she stands on her team, in her LSC, in her zone, in the nation. But again, don't get caught up in that. I use it mainly to try to pick the best events for my really competitive swimmer to swim in the championship meet (and then it is only a guideline, as she and her coach ultimately choose, but if the goal is something like "make finals," then that is a useful tool). My less competitive daughter is borderline on some LSC cuts, we just go with tthe flow with her.
She's in the same age group as my daughters. She has some pretty solid A times, and some AA times. The A times are often pretty close to the LSC championship cuts, and the AA times are often close to Sectional cuts. I would say that she's doing incredibly well for only being in it for 1.5 years. Some kids can come in when she did, and crush it, but it is not that common. Let me say a couple of things before I show you another cool resource. First, she needs to be happy doing this. She'll make great friends and have strong bonds. She'll learn about hard work, time management, sportsmanship, etc. Those are far more important results than the times. She'll carry those forward for the rest of her life, regardless of if she swims in the future or not. Second of all, one of the great things about swimming is that one doesn't need to always have an opponent to measure success. Her progress can be evaluated against her old times, or as she improves her Power Point totals, or as she moves up the Motivational Time chart.
That said, one of the more useful tools I have found is www.swimmingrank.com. You can see where she stands on her team, in her LSC, in her zone, in the nation. But again, don't get caught up in that. I use it mainly to try to pick the best events for my really competitive swimmer to swim in the championship meet (and then it is only a guideline, as she and her coach ultimately choose, but if the goal is something like "make finals," then that is a useful tool). My less competitive daughter is borderline on some LSC cuts, we just go with tthe flow with her.
