9 Year Old Marvel What? But How?

That Guy- he doesn't REALLY think "these boards suck horribly" nor does he think the opinions are worth :2cents:. i feel so used :badday:

Hear was a conversation I heard at a rec meet last summer: (mom looking really pissed and shoving her daughter along after a race): "You didn't do ANYTHING I told you!" (I couldn't hear a response from the daughter) "All you were thinking about was that candy!" (I'm assuming that candy was promised for a "good" race) Sad thing is that this person is a masters swimmer and the daughter was 7! I was really upset, but it reinforced for me that I should keep telling my kids how proud I was of their "effort". I also know that this person takes their kid over to the high point trophy table at meets and tells them what they "could win". This kid never got a HP trophy, and I'd be surprised if they swim much past 12. I will just never forget that conversation as long as I live. And by the look on the mom's face you would have sworn this kid had done something horribly wrong. :chillpill:

Kind of a coincidence that this would come up now. I don't know RAC's situation and don't want to imply that it is the same as what I've seen over the last week. Anyway, this week a young girl around 10 years old has been showing up at our pool with her grandmother. Sunday she swam next to me and seemed pretty strong. After a while she was asking her grandmother if she could stop. Answer was "no". All week she had been coming earlier and earlier. Today, she showed up at 5:30 and swam next to me. We pushed through 4650 yards today and I think she probably did at least 75% of that. I added it up in my head and was thinking 3500 yards is an awful lot for someone that age. After practice, the grandmother starts telling me about her situation. I was sympathetic to a lot of it. She has worked hard and continues to be placed on the B team. It crossed over to awkward when the grandmother made me read a letter she wrote to the team coach. I know the coach... not well... but I assume there are two sides to the story. Anyway, the girl is unattached now and presumably coached by the grandmother (although I'm not 100% sure of that). What had me really concerned was the grandmother told me she was trying to get her to keep up with us. That's hardly fair and I'd have slowed down if I knew. I wasn't exactly sure what to say. No doubt the grandmother loves her granddaughter and wants the best for her. At the same time I got the sense that the grandmother was motivated by showing the other coach he was wrong for holding her back. I don't doubt the girl wants to be there but I can see burnout coming in a couple years especially if she has to got at it alone for that long. I suggested to keep it fun and not worry about time too much. That was easy to illustrate since my 13 year old son came with me today. He is exicted about swimming 25 yards in 25 seconds. I'm excited for him. It was his goal that he set on his own and he worked hard on his own to get there. He swims 1500-2000 yards and then splashes around and watches us. I told the grandmother if he ever decides to get serious, I have no doubt he will be a very good swimmer. For now, it is fun for him... is just hope it is fun for the little girl also.

Last summer, my 8 yr old daughter had just won the 25 free in a summer league meet. (She had been swimming 3 years at this point.) She's just out of the pool, still dripping and I'm compelled to "coach" her how to improve her start. This was a common occurance. In the middle of it, she stops me and asks me "why I had to keep giving her advice and not just be happy for her". I hope I never forget that moment. I have to really bite my tongue with my 7 yo too, it is so hard when you can see how they can improve something so easily, but all they really need is a big hug! She swam summer league and the fall program to Dec last year, then we had a break. Out of the water she was miserable, she needed some activity and so I took a huge leap and put her in USAS a month ago. I had vowed not to do it, but she is loving it! Apparently swimming is "awesome" and when I mentioned a leaflet I got about summer sports camps she asked "is there swimming?" I think I now know she is doing it for her, not for me. I've told myself that if she wants to do something different in Middle school or whenever, so be it. But for now she's getting some great coaching and trying really hard, so its all good. If she stops and starts up again later she's still going to have been taught proper technique (almost) from the start. My only concern now is that her little sister is desperate to swim just like her.......

I agree, I have three of them (teenage girls that is). Regardless the sport, activity or interest, I enjoy seeing kids taking part in activities that they enjoy and that make them happy. Same here. I swim as a form of therapy more than anything. :) And agreed on the sports participation. As long as a kid is involved in some sort of activity (beyond the endless text messaging and Facebook-ing they all seem to do), then they should be encouraged to keep at it. ...meaning the sports. :2cents: It really doesn't matter if one's child goes a :55 or a :25 for the 50 free. On the other hand there are a small percentage of parents who live vicariously through their child's achievements. And making the cuts seem more important to the adults than the kids. Tiger parents. :) :bitching:

Call me weird, call me crazy Ok, you are wierd and crazy.

I let my wife take care of the babyswim with our first two girls, since she was home on leave and the classes were early. but I've been in the water with my first two for their "mini" swim school 2-3yrs (maybe slightly in to the classes when the oldest was 4). My oldest is turning 6 this summer and is in her 4th termin with swimschool, and I remember one of her first solo classes where it's only the kids and their instructor in the pool area and in the water. She wasn't doing anything the instructor asked, from a distance i just saw her sitting on the side shaking her head. I walked over tried to get her to do what the other kids were doing, I got irritated threated to take her home if she didn't start listening to the instructor but I never took the time to ask why she was sitting there. after 30-45 sec I gave up and walked away. After I left the group got up and went to the shallower pool for other drills. Afterwards she told me the reason she didn't want to swim was the water was too cold. it never crossed my mind that the "other" pool was 32-34C and the big pool is only 28-29C. From that day on I stay off deck when she is in the pool. I've only got 7 weeks left with girl #2 before she starts going solo, good thing we have a 3rd one on the way. when we go to the pool on our own (no classes that day) I use to try to teach my oldest to use her arms, but I have also given up on teaching her, it's better we just have fun at the pool. and to my surprise she's the one asking to go into my "swim school" pool so she can show me something...

When I look back some 40 years ago when I was a young kid swimming age-group, the lasting memories I have which mean the most are my dad saying he was proud of me.

Hi, I've been following this forum for more then a year but this is my first post here. My daughter is 9 years old and she's been swimming for 2 years. For the last six months she's been swimming with her team four times a week. She's a happy swimmer and they have a very good friendship within the team. They do half-hour dryland training + one hour pool. Her free and *** styles are quite nice so far. Her short-course(25m) 50meter times are: Free 40 Back 48 Fly 50 *** 52 Although she has a good night's sleep, eats carbs before the race, her stamina drops clearly after 35 meters. How can she improve her stamina? Any suggestions? Is there something we can do to help her at home? Should we take her out for hiking or jogging? Thanks in advance.

I have been lurking for a little while. I did a search today on youth swimming as my 9yr old told me she was going to play soccer this spring and not continue with her year round club. I came across this thread. Her background, started summer club as a 5yr old part time, a few meets and practice 3X week and had a ball. She did summer club full time (here it is 2 months during the summer, 5 mornings a week practice and a meet on Saturdays) as a 6yr old and placed 7th in the state meet 8U in the backstroke (25m). As a 7yr old, she made the state tourney in Free (25m and 50m), Fly (25m), and Back (25m) and really improved her times all around, except her back which was about the same as her state time from a year previous. She swam for a couple of months during the winter last year (2X) a week as an 8yr old but didn't do any meets and then was a world beater in her summer club, state champ in both 50 free and 25 back and 2nd in 25 free. Qualified for state in every event and even swam a legal *** three times (B time, then League time, then State time). This fall, after soccer ended in October, she wanted to swim again for the winter. We limit the kids activities to something athletic and something else (music, art, chess, oral interp etc.) at a time, they would want to participate in everything it seems, at all times. Instead of the group she had swam with the previous winter, we decided to try out the local year round clubs (there are three about the same distance from our home). She spent a week with each. I sent an email to each of the three clubs with her experience and times and let them know that she was looking to swim 3X a week, but not necessarily race as ski season was coming up and she would be gone most weekends with the family skiing. It was an interesting three weeks. The largest club put her in a beginner group because all of their "serious" groups swam at least four times a week. So she swam circles around these kids for a week and we moved on to the next club. The next club had her come in and start with their beginner group. They pulled her out of the lane after a lap and told her to wait until the next higher group started in 45 minutes. In the 45 minutes she met a couple of the girls in the next group and was besties with them before practice had even started. She really enjoyed her new friends, the coach, and the workouts. The last club she really clicked with the coach and liked the workouts but didn't meet a soul in the week and didn't have fun. After the three weeks it was a no brainer, club #2. After Thanksgiving break we would start her in her first year round club. There was a meet at the end of that first week, there were office x-mas parties so we couldn't ski and she wanted to compete and the coach was able to get her into the meet. Whoa! What a difference between summer club and year round. Our little swimmer did great in her first meet but I found out the true meaning of those younger phenoms the OP referred to. It is a whole different level. She placed in the top 1/5 of her 10U events but there were a handful of girls her age beating her, and a couple decidedly so. After that first week and her first meet, the coach moved her up into the next training group (she's the only 9yr old in the new group). Luckily there are a few 10 yr old girls that she quickly bonded with so the fear of leaving her besties behind quickly subsided. She's having fun and told me the other day coming home from practice that "Daddy, I just love swimming." My wife and I were taken back by how accomplished some of the 9yr olds were. Being the obsessive Dad, I did my research, all of them had been swimming year round for at least a couple of years. Some more, to the OPs question about young speedsters: My daughter has a perfect late May summer club swim birthday, she beats the age cutoff by four days so has up to almost a year advantage on some swimmers. It's not bad for year round SCY either with state being in March. She is tallish and very muscular for her age. I presume she has had great and consistent coaching for four summer seasons, our summer club is a top club in the state and consistently has strong performances. I have no swimming background so I wouldn't know and I've never sat through one of her practices so I have no idea what they do. She is the younger sister to an older brother and competitive as hell, she will kill herself in practices, doesn't know any different. To Astro, my daughter did "Girls on the Run" last year as her fall and spring sports (5k run training program) with 2 months of 2X a week swimming in the winter, she dropped from 19-20 second 25m Free's as a 7yr old to 16-17 seconds, one season to the next. This has all been a long drawn out way of getting to our fears that she was going to be left behind by not staying with the year round team and going back to soccer and hence the search and find of this thread this morning. To everyone here, I came with my worries, after reading all of this I intend to go home, hug her, tell her how proud I am of her and wish her the best when soccer comes around. She still intends to do summer club ("Dad, I would die for them!") and we will see what she wants to do next fall, next fall. USA Swimming should add this thread to their parents page.