Overbearing Swimming Parents

Are you sure you are forcing her.

My 91-year-old mom still has no patience with me when I lose a race. -- mel This reminds me of a swimmer on our team swimming in the 85-89 age group. He would take his ribbons to his mom at the nursing home. Wish I had those genes.

That message "overbearing swim parents" can be placed on parents of children involved in all sports, some parents are very competitive and want their children to be #1. Theres all kinds of reasons ranging from plain greed that they will share in the childs success (money) if it happens the kids rise to that level , to satisfaction for the parent seeing their kid get the gold. Personally I feel sports are a great thing for kids to be in but leave them to compete ,encourage them for sure and be there for them of course and let them know that you feel they are the best no matter how they finish. There are other things in life for them..that also will be important, .. unless they just happen to show a "special quality" in a sport , I mean they start to become very , very good, above the norm.. . If that happens a lot of thought about whats BEST for THEM , not mommy and daddy is in order.

The incidents are just amazing. I'm glad we haven't had these kind of problems with our team. I have seen some parents of other teams carrying on at meets but nothing like is being described on this forum.

Fortress: It's hard to be an official at times because we're a small LSC and we've become friends with parents and kids from all the teams. And DQ'ing my child wasn't easy...he took 2 strokes after turning over. It was a quiet 2-1/2 hour ride home. I don't have to deal with that situation anymore since I've become a starter (just hope he doesn't launch early). My wife swam in high school but only swims once in a while now. Even though we're involved in swimming as a family, it's a fun thing and my son and daughter also participate in other sports during the year. And just because mom is the coach, thay are not required to be at every practice.

The parents that lectured other people's kids really REALLY used to steam me. I coached a few seasons of summer league. The vast majority of the parents were laid-back, enjoyed the meets, etc. I never minded the parents who cheered for their kids loudly from the sides (even the really loud ones). The ones that drove me nuts were those that questioned every event decision, every relay choice. Hello parents, it's summer league! And it's not like our team was a great one... we were in division 3 of a 4 division league (div 1 being the tops) and not even at the top of division 3. Geez... However, these parents sound mild compared to some of those other people have written about!!

I swim in 1-2 USS meets a year. Masters meets here are few and far between and unless I want to spend all day driving to meets in northern California, it's my only opportunity to race. It's fun swimming against the kids even though I get creamed. Last year at our Thanksgiving Invit. my 13 y.o. son and I were seeded in the same heat in the 100 free. As you can imagine, there was a bit of trash talking going on before the race.

i could go on forever about the swim parents from my club team. there was this one family, who made the coach bend the rules so that their swimmer could room with them instead of our teammates because the parents wanted to go over strategy with the swimmer, which would completely alienate that swimmer from the team. we always had so much fun at away meets rooming together, and that swimmer never got to partake in that. we always dreaded our team bonding trips because the crazy parents would insist on coming, and the "cool" parents got out voted to chaperone. we also had a few parents who would yell at the coach and said he wasn't doing his job. they formed a committee and would hold weekly meetings to discuss things of that nature (along with other normal stuff like dues). they eventually got one of our coaches fired. i personally hated swimming on a relay with the daughter of the "Crazy parents" because her parents would lecture each of us prior to the race. My parents hated that.

Ok, I forgot this one. A thread by Frank reminded me. It's a doozy.:rolleyes: I know parents of an 11 year old (one a doctor) who put their child on HGH because she was on the smallish side for sports and they wanted to give her every edge. Despite being small, she was an all-star breaststroker and on my daughter's soccer team. This kid did not have a height problem and was quite talented on her own. It was ludicrous.

George: This girl was not tiny. She may have been slightly below 50% or so. But her father, a former California state champion swimmer and now manager of that soccer team, wasn't satisfied. So my daughter got a big earful about injections. Maybe I should worry too. My daughter is in the 75% in height, but she is still shorter than most of her peers at swim meets...