A Few Suggestions For How To Be

A Better Swimming Parent

Reproduced from ASCA Newsletter Volume 2003 Issue 1; by Coach Michael Brooks, NBAC, ASCA Fellow.

 Teaching Values

 You are the key to your child’s swimming
A parent’s attitude toward swimming, the program, the coach, and his child’s participation, is key towards a child’s attitude and success. The young swimming takes cues from his parent. If the parent shows by word, deed, facial expression, etc. that he does not value swimming, that he does not appreciate having to drive to practice or sit in the stands during meets, that “it is not going to matter” if the child skips practice, that morning practices are just optional and that the child would be better off with extra sleep, then the chances are very good that the child will lack commitment, have little success, then loose interest in swimming. Support you child’s interest in swimming by being positively interested.

 Allow your swimmer to be resilient
Failure and facing failure, doesn’t cause kids to melt. Failure is not such an evil thing that parents should try to shield their kids from it. Allow them to fail, then teach them to get up off the canvas and try harder to succeed the next time. If parents are continually sheltering their swimmers from the storm, cushioning every fall, making excuses for them, finding someone else to blame, the children never learn anything. Even worse, they never learn that they are responsible for both their failures and for their successes. Allow them to stand on their own, and you will be helping them immeasurably down the road.

 Teach them to dream big – a world of infinite possibilities
 If you try to temper your child’s dreams, if you teach her to settle for the ordinary, you may indeed save her from many a heartache and many a failure. But you also rob her of the opportunity to achieve great things, and the opportunity to plumb her depths and realize her potential. Winning means big failures many time s along the way. Each failure hurts, but these temporary setbacks create the strength for the final push. Instead of having children avoid failure by never taking risks, teach them how to think correctly about failing; risk taking and failure are necessary for improvement, development, motivation, feedback and long term success.

  What success is
Only one swimmer can win the race. Often in the younger age groups, the winner will be the one who has bloomed early, not necessarily the most talent of the most potential to succeed in senior swimming. It is expected that every parent wants his child to to succeed, wants his child to have good and valuable experiences with swimming. Every child can succeed – only make sure you define success correctly: Being the best you can be, striving for improvement in every aspect of swimming. That leads to lasting success… and lasting enjoyment.

Fun, fun, fun
If fun means mindless entertainment and sensory bombardment, then wasting hours playing Nintendo is loads of fun, and swimming ,by definition, in not fun. If fun means working hard and challenging yourself, taking pride in accomplishing difficult goals, and discovering talents you did not know you had, then swimming is fun, and Nintendo, by definition, in not fun. The meaning of fun is very much an open question for children and one where parents and coached have much influences over their charges. Are we building a nation of energized achievers, or lifeless couch potatoes?

Work, work, work
Persistence and work ethic are the most important qualities leading to success in swimming and everything else. And if work ethic in not created and cultivated when a swimmer is young, it is very likely it will never appear. It is so rare as not to be and option that a kid who is a slacker from ages seven to fourteen will suddenly change he his spots and become a hard worker. Love for and pride in hard work must be inculcated early on, and again parents and coaches have much influence in creating this attitude.

Burnout is over-rated
So many times parents and kids will say, “I don’t want to commit to swimming because I don’t want to get burned out”. But for every one case of burnout caused by a swimmer spending too much time in the water and working too hard, we will see a hundred cases of preemptive burnout: in order not to be burned out, the swimmer comes to practice only when she feels like, doesn’t work out very hard, skips team meets with regularity, and generally makes no commitment to the program or the sport. Not surprisingly, the swimmer swims slow, makes little or no improvement, and sees her formerly slower competitors whiz right by her. Then we wonder why she “just can’t get jazzed about swimming”.

Sitting on the fence and remaining lukewarm on principle has noting to recommend it
Discipline and commitment are good things, not things we should downplay, hide, apologize for, or – worst of all – stop demanding because it may be unpopular. If you want to enjoy swimming even more, commit yourself and swim fast! You do not become excited about an activity you don’t do well at.

Home and pool must dovetail
Traits of discipline, respect, high expectations, and commitment at home directly relate to the child’s characteristics at practices and meets. This is yet another area where the family support is crucial to the success of the swimmer. Parents should review, carefully the Credo and other formative memos about values the team espouses. If the current at home is flowing from the opposite direction from the current at the pool, there will be big problems. If the family does not buy into the program, they will be very unhappy here.