I just became the coach of my first swim team, and I, being a male, am having a hard time with the whole period thing. My girls are middle school level, and a little shy about the subject, as am I. Now, I know that you can swim on your period by using a tampon, but they cringed at the idea. However, on a 20 girl team, I've got as many as 6-7 girls sitting out daily because of it. I know that's far FAR too high. I'm about this close to going out and buying a box of tampons to shove in their face if they don't dress.
So my questions are:
How necessary is it that you wear a tampon? Is it an every day thing? are there times when it's worse than others?
And, how can I easily make the lives of the swimmers who don't swim (and keep in mind it has to be for a group of 6-7 people) a living hell. I need a dry land work out that can be done on the pool deck that takes little effort to watch (so I can coach the other girls) and something they can't really slack off - I keep giving them push ups and they barely go down.
I really can't think of anything outside of making the actual swim session fun, so if you guys have ideas on how to do that too it might work, too. It need to work on something important though.
Be really careful with this one. You are dealing with kids and thus, parents. You could really run into some problems with parents if you don't handle it carefully.
As a woman, I think it silly for any girl to be afraid to wear tampons and thus, not be able to swim. You must remember, however, that the choice of any girl in this group not to do so is a decision that has been made by the girl and HER MOTHER. Moms know the problem with swimming and periods. If these mothers have decided not to encourage their daughters to wear tampons, then I would be careful with interfering with that decision.
Perhaps you could enlist the help of the school nurse in raising the issue with these girls and their parents. If there is a parent of one of the girls on the team that is a nurse or doc, this would be a good resource as well.
Perhaps you could have swim videos of proper stroke technique for any kid to watch - male or female - when they have to miss practice due to injury, illness, or period. Perhaps another coach or parent could supervise the "video room." For dryland stuff, I would suggest doing exercises using surgical tubing, Swiss ball, and a light medicine ball.
Be really careful with this one. You are dealing with kids and thus, parents. You could really run into some problems with parents if you don't handle it carefully.
As a woman, I think it silly for any girl to be afraid to wear tampons and thus, not be able to swim. You must remember, however, that the choice of any girl in this group not to do so is a decision that has been made by the girl and HER MOTHER. Moms know the problem with swimming and periods. If these mothers have decided not to encourage their daughters to wear tampons, then I would be careful with interfering with that decision.
Perhaps you could enlist the help of the school nurse in raising the issue with these girls and their parents. If there is a parent of one of the girls on the team that is a nurse or doc, this would be a good resource as well.
Perhaps you could have swim videos of proper stroke technique for any kid to watch - male or female - when they have to miss practice due to injury, illness, or period. Perhaps another coach or parent could supervise the "video room." For dryland stuff, I would suggest doing exercises using surgical tubing, Swiss ball, and a light medicine ball.
