Is Swimming Eating Its Young?

1) Children should progress with children of their same age. A fast 12 year old should not train with 17 and 18 year olds no matter how fast he/she is. Maturity level of the swimmers needs to be the same and the coach should not have to try to speak to multiple levels of age appropriate intellects. 2) Children up to about the age of 10 to 12 should do more than one sport even if one is done more than the other. you don't know what they will really like or what they will excel at later in life. 3) The amount of time spent on any give sport/hobby/interest (music included) should be age appropriate. No 8 year old should be doing any one thing (non-school) more than 2 or 3 hours a week including travel time. The time can increase with age as interest increases but it has to be appropriate for the maturity of the mind and body. Freshman in high school should not be doing doubles during the school year. Juniors might do it once or twice. Seniors twice a week. On the mental side, this is important because too many kids will begin to measure themselves by what they do with this time (in this case we are talking swimming) and they need to be more than single dimensional people. 4) Parents need to look at this before they join a swim team if they have more than one option. In any case, they need to let the team know that this is what they believe up front so that there are no surprises later. Leo Leo: Great post. Excellent, excellent advice. I chose my kids' team for all the reasons you articulated, although my daughter does swim with some older kids -- but not 17 year olds. I would also add that I think summer swim leagues are fabulous. It is more of a team sport. It is very low key. People do silly cheers and have meet "themes." Parents embarass themselves by swimming old codger relays one night. It is a nice break from high intensity youth meets and long course summer training. My kids love their summer team. I wouldn't let me daughter swim long course until this year. I remember when I started it, I hated it. I wanted her to wait a bit before embarking on that long haul. It's clearly in her future. But there's no reason the future has to start so very young. All: I wonder if personality play a role in burnout? I have an evolving theory that I have been studying and mulling over. No one, of course, has to agree with it. In my experience, and only my personal experience, I have found many (not saying most here) young elite swimmers are somewhat introspective perfectionists who prefer individual sports and are very intense and hard on themselves. (I was like that as an age grouper.) I am beginning to wonder whether this particular personality type may risk burnout more than others when it is combined with high yardage and (possible) injury. I read an article in Splash magazine about Whitney Myers. She is a bubbly, chatty extrovert. Kate Zeigler is the same way. I know some other age groupers just like that who view swim meets as parties, smile the whole time and don't sob or pout or chastise themselves when they don't do a personal best. I wonder if that type of personality is perhaps not as apt to burn out? Just a thought. Obviously, lots of intense types do equally well and don't burn out. And you need intensity and focus as you get older. I just wonder whether intensity + intense yardage might = earlier burnout.

1) Children should progress with children of their same age. A fast 12 year old should not train with 17 and 18 year olds no matter how fast he/she is. Maturity level of the swimmers needs to be the same and the coach should not have to try to speak to multiple levels of age appropriate intellects. 2) Children up to about the age of 10 to 12 should do more than one sport even if one is done more than the other. you don't know what they will really like or what they will excel at later in life. 3) The amount of time spent on any give sport/hobby/interest (music included) should be age appropriate. No 8 year old should be doing any one thing (non-school) more than 2 or 3 hours a week including travel time. The time can increase with age as interest increases but it has to be appropriate for the maturity of the mind and body. Freshman in high school should not be doing doubles during the school year. Juniors might do it once or twice. Seniors twice a week. On the mental side, this is important because too many kids will begin to measure themselves by what they do with this time (in this case we are talking swimming) and they need to be more than single dimensional people. 4) Parents need to look at this before they join a swim team if they have more than one option. In any case, they need to let the team know that this is what they believe up front so that there are no surprises later. Leo Leo: Great post. Excellent, excellent advice. I chose my kids' team for all the reasons you articulated, although my daughter does swim with some older kids -- but not 17 year olds. I would also add that I think summer swim leagues are fabulous. It is more of a team sport. It is very low key. People do silly cheers and have meet "themes." Parents embarass themselves by swimming old codger relays one night. It is a nice break from high intensity youth meets and long course summer training. My kids love their summer team. I wouldn't let me daughter swim long course until this year. I remember when I started it, I hated it. I wanted her to wait a bit before embarking on that long haul. It's clearly in her future. But there's no reason the future has to start so very young. All: I wonder if personality play a role in burnout? I have an evolving theory that I have been studying and mulling over. No one, of course, has to agree with it. In my experience, and only my personal experience, I have found many (not saying most here) young elite swimmers are somewhat introspective perfectionists who prefer individual sports and are very intense and hard on themselves. (I was like that as an age grouper.) I am beginning to wonder whether this particular personality type may risk burnout more than others when it is combined with high yardage and (possible) injury. I read an article in Splash magazine about Whitney Myers. She is a bubbly, chatty extrovert. Kate Zeigler is the same way. I know some other age groupers just like that who view swim meets as parties, smile the whole time and don't sob or pout or chastise themselves when they don't do a personal best. I wonder if that type of personality is perhaps not as apt to burn out? Just a thought. Obviously, lots of intense types do equally well and don't burn out. And you need intensity and focus as you get older. I just wonder whether intensity + intense yardage might = earlier burnout.