I've been reading with increasing interest the thread on overbearing swim parents. I am familiar with this situation having been a Little League umpire at one point in time ... my proudest moment was stopping the game to eject parents!!
However ... I remarried some time ago, and 9 months after our honeymoon, my lovely wife gave birth to a son. He's now 7.5 years old and almost daily makes me consider this athletic dilemma. (One of the great parts of being a 56-year old, stay-at-home Dad & small business owner is "they" get to deal with me, not a "soccer MOM"!!)
Ryan, our son, show some pretty good athletic talent. At age 4, he started Karate and went through the belts quickly. When we joined the Y so I could swim, he transitioned away from karate to judo and is also doing well at that. Last winter, we took him skiing and he took to it quickly and enthusiastically. In all of this, Mom and I do very little "pushing" ... but do give him a lot of encouragement and opportunity.
This past summer, he asked if he could learn to swim. We enrolled him as a beginner and he made good progress. Very good progress, actually, as he's pretty adept at crawl, backstroke, and he's even started playing at butterfly. He's asked if he could join the Y's swim team. Their basic criteria is to do 50 yards of crawl without stopping, and have a rudimentary knowledge of the other strokes. Over the past two weeks, he has been working himself hard and he can meet the basic criteria and is now exceeding it.
For example, today, while I was swimming in lane 2, he and his mother shared lane 1. He did 2x50 free without fins, 4x50 free with fins, a 400 backstroke with fins (could not believe it ... he just kept going, and going, and going ...!!), and several 1x25 "butterfly". He hasn't mastered breaststroke yet. But, clearly, he is ready to join the team in the near future.
Here's our main dilemma. He seems to have all of the physical attributes of a gifted young athlete. He catches on quickly and seems willing to work. We're not sure about his mental attitude, but he seems to be competitive and likes to win (if I spot him about 5 yards, he can keep up with me when he wears fins. Today we raced three times, and he beat me one out of three ... much to his joy.) By the way, he does well in school and his teacher says he's in the top 20% of his class ... so no worries there either.
I'd obviously like to have him join the swim team (I was about that age when I first joined) and he's probably ready. But, we don't want to be THOSE kind of parents ... yet we want him to succeed ... maybe even excel.
Any ideas?
Cheers!!
Ken
Just remember, he needs to do it for him. Always ask if he has had fun. after practice, after a meet. .
Go to the USA swimming website and click on the parents tab. Lots of good articles there.
Be careful about getting him in too many things too soon. It is exciting when your young one has apptitude for things, and I often see parents of these young ones sign their kids up for every meet, every weekend, every event. And for a while it is great fun for them, but the season is long, and the years even longer, so if you don't want him to burn out, take it slow.
Teach him to be a good team mate. Practice is not about racing and beating the other children, it is about learning and improving. The other kids are his friends. He may win, he may lose, but they are his friends regardless.
On that end, we talk a lot about racing against the clock, but that sometimes can backfire. Once he has been swimming, it is a common mistake for parents to compare an end of season time against the start of the new season. When kids are new, the times drop, but once they are more experienced, it sometimes takes time to get back to those end of season times. Instead, compare where the child was at the same time last year. That is where you see improvement. Also, besides time, praise the improvement in other areas. Such as learning flip turns, doing underwater pull out correctly, breathing correctly in freestyle.
Do ask what the coach is teaching, so you can reinforce what the coach says. Don't tell the child that the coach is teaching wrong, if you have a difference opinion on something, set up an appointment with the coach, out of hearing of the child, and discuss it. But never, never, never place your kid in the middle of such a conflict. Don't do it to your child at school, don't do it to your child in sports. Coaches often have reasons for why they are doing something, and it may involve what is best for the entire group, not just one child. Keep that in mind.
Just remember, he needs to do it for him. Always ask if he has had fun. after practice, after a meet. .
Go to the USA swimming website and click on the parents tab. Lots of good articles there.
Be careful about getting him in too many things too soon. It is exciting when your young one has apptitude for things, and I often see parents of these young ones sign their kids up for every meet, every weekend, every event. And for a while it is great fun for them, but the season is long, and the years even longer, so if you don't want him to burn out, take it slow.
Teach him to be a good team mate. Practice is not about racing and beating the other children, it is about learning and improving. The other kids are his friends. He may win, he may lose, but they are his friends regardless.
On that end, we talk a lot about racing against the clock, but that sometimes can backfire. Once he has been swimming, it is a common mistake for parents to compare an end of season time against the start of the new season. When kids are new, the times drop, but once they are more experienced, it sometimes takes time to get back to those end of season times. Instead, compare where the child was at the same time last year. That is where you see improvement. Also, besides time, praise the improvement in other areas. Such as learning flip turns, doing underwater pull out correctly, breathing correctly in freestyle.
Do ask what the coach is teaching, so you can reinforce what the coach says. Don't tell the child that the coach is teaching wrong, if you have a difference opinion on something, set up an appointment with the coach, out of hearing of the child, and discuss it. But never, never, never place your kid in the middle of such a conflict. Don't do it to your child at school, don't do it to your child in sports. Coaches often have reasons for why they are doing something, and it may involve what is best for the entire group, not just one child. Keep that in mind.
