How old should a child be when they start to compete?

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I'm afraid that too many young people may have had much the same experience as you, and as a result have been turned off to sports of all kinds. We, Delaney's parents, coaches and grandparents, are working very hard to be sensitive to her desires and needs. Thats the reason I started this thread. As of now, you can't keep the child out of the pool. She gets angry if she has to miss a practice for some reason, like an ear ache. She really seems to think its fun and even "jokes" about her mistakes. When my daughter gets all the info about the meet, she will decide whether or not she wants Delaney to compete. If she doesn't she isn't even going to mention the meet to her. But if she feels it would be an appropriate meet to go to then she will ask Delaney if she wants to... so ultimately it will be up to my granddaugher. Last night my daughter was telling me something funny that happenned at practice this week. The coach had her group practicing backstroke. He asked my granddaughter to go first. She grabs the gutter then curls her little toes over the gutter, but when she pushes off she doesn't streamline, she arches her back and dolphins, causing her to go deeper in the water. When she does pop up she flails both arms backwards and continues to dolphin so she is kinda doing butterfly on her back. By the time she gets to the ladder the coach is there. He says, "Delaney, WHAT was THAT?" Without missing a beat, she replies, "THAT was the DELANEY backstroke!" In a joking tone (he was trying not to laugh), the coach says, "Delaney, you may be good, but there are a lot of other good swimmers in the world and no one has a stroke named after them." Then everyone had a laugh about it and the practice went on.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I'm afraid that too many young people may have had much the same experience as you, and as a result have been turned off to sports of all kinds. We, Delaney's parents, coaches and grandparents, are working very hard to be sensitive to her desires and needs. Thats the reason I started this thread. As of now, you can't keep the child out of the pool. She gets angry if she has to miss a practice for some reason, like an ear ache. She really seems to think its fun and even "jokes" about her mistakes. When my daughter gets all the info about the meet, she will decide whether or not she wants Delaney to compete. If she doesn't she isn't even going to mention the meet to her. But if she feels it would be an appropriate meet to go to then she will ask Delaney if she wants to... so ultimately it will be up to my granddaugher. Last night my daughter was telling me something funny that happenned at practice this week. The coach had her group practicing backstroke. He asked my granddaughter to go first. She grabs the gutter then curls her little toes over the gutter, but when she pushes off she doesn't streamline, she arches her back and dolphins, causing her to go deeper in the water. When she does pop up she flails both arms backwards and continues to dolphin so she is kinda doing butterfly on her back. By the time she gets to the ladder the coach is there. He says, "Delaney, WHAT was THAT?" Without missing a beat, she replies, "THAT was the DELANEY backstroke!" In a joking tone (he was trying not to laugh), the coach says, "Delaney, you may be good, but there are a lot of other good swimmers in the world and no one has a stroke named after them." Then everyone had a laugh about it and the practice went on.