My 11 year old son just started his first competitive year of swim team after doing a year of developmental swim team last year. He attended his first meet last weekend and was so disappointed that he told me he no longer wants to do swim. The kids in our area start swimming competitively very young and by 11-12 are all very fast. He came in last in all his races and with times twice as slow as the next slowest kid before him. Unfortunately, he just aged into the 11-12 group by 2 weeks, and in combination with being small for his age and not really being all that athletic/strong, the whole thing just made him feel like he was really bad. We have placed no expectations on him other than to try his best and have fun with his friends, but his perfectionist personality is sort of his downfall. If he can't be good at something, he would rather not try at all.
His coaches have told me that he has great technique, so I know he at least has a good foundation. We tried explaining that the other kids have had many more years of training and if he sticks it out, he will start to catch up if he works at it.
He loves swimming and being in the water, so I am hoping for some advice on how to have him continue without hating it. So far, we have compromised and said he didn't have to attend any of the USA meets this year. But we would like him to go to the local league's team meets, for the sake of supporting his teammates and being a good sport. He saw a glimpse of that at last week's meet when his teammates told him "good job" and a boy on the opposing team high fived him after he climbed out, exhausted, after the 100 yard free at almost 2:00.
First and foremost, work with his coach on anything. The coach will likely have seen this situation in the past.
After that, have your soon take a look at his times and challenge him to see if he can drop them by a certain time (month-6 weeks?). If he's really that competitive/perfectionist, this should appeal to him. With only a year in, he's probably going to continue to drop time if his technique really is that good. Because he aged up recently he's going to have those challenge. Another thing is to maybe look at the USAS times to give him some goals to strive for to improve. They're pretty fast, but look at the difference between the 10U and 11-12. He can strive to work towards these times.
www.usaswimming.org/.../time-standards
First and foremost, work with his coach on anything. The coach will likely have seen this situation in the past.
After that, have your soon take a look at his times and challenge him to see if he can drop them by a certain time (month-6 weeks?). If he's really that competitive/perfectionist, this should appeal to him. With only a year in, he's probably going to continue to drop time if his technique really is that good. Because he aged up recently he's going to have those challenge. Another thing is to maybe look at the USAS times to give him some goals to strive for to improve. They're pretty fast, but look at the difference between the 10U and 11-12. He can strive to work towards these times.
www.usaswimming.org/.../time-standards
