Summer swim brings out the crazy
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Anonymous
My family's at a division 17 pool. Just like people said, the people who either weasel their way out of volunteering or run the pool are still off on the side gossiping about kids' times. We can't even fill lanes, but here they are grudging some kid a few seconds on their fly time. |
Anonymous
This. Avoid the parents of the 10 and unders. They are the craziest when it comes to summer swim, and club swim for that matter. |
Anonymous
| Yes, any swimmer who is halfway decent at age 10 or under will have parents who think they are Olympics bound. Some will be more boisterous than others. Its not until reality hits them in the face between 11 and 13 that their swimmer is not any better than any other. It happens to everyone. Ignore them and know that it gets better in the older age groups. |
Anonymous
| I can't believe anyone had practice yesterday! The weather this week is miserable for outdoor swim. |
Anonymous
The kid is 10. Lot of kids make JOs at that age and then drop by 14 or 15, it means nothing. I feel sorry for their club and summer coaches. |
Anonymous
Yup, we have a parent like this whose kid is now 13 and a middle of the road BB swimmer. Those of us who were there for the theatrics and demands when the kid was 10 now believe in karma. |
Anonymous
| Run as fast as you can from swim team. This is the reason we never got involved. Perfectly nice, normal people become complete lunatics for 8 weeks a year. No thanks! |
Anonymous
Team Rep here. Trust me, we don't have time to gossip about kids' times or grandstand about our own kids. We're too busy dealing with the crazy parents 
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Anonymous
Over our years at the pool I've seen both types of team reps. |
Anonymous
| The mom(s) you mentioned needs to point out all of these things now because meets haven't started. Once she feels like people can see her future Olympian dominate, hopefully she will pipe down. |
Anonymous
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Unless your swimmer needs you at practice, don’t stay. Drop off and pick up. If you have to stay, old fashioned ear buds with wires to make it obvious you are on a call, and stand near a door that you can quickly exit.
Volunteer to time at every meet you can. The timers will most likely be the parents you will want to know and talk too: less drama. You’ll probably know quickly if any of the timers are wacky. Volunteer to set-up and tear-down after the meets. Volunteer to bring things to events; don’t volunteer to coordinate anything to avoid possible prolonged exposure to toxic parents. |
Anonymous
We are 17 as well and literally have two families that are competitive against everyone else. Otherwise, for the rest of us it's cheer every kid every time (even for opponents). Though I am usually hanging around with the old parents (11 and up) or volunteering so maybe that skews my perspective. |
Anonymous
| The parents are hyper! |
Anonymous
| In my experience, these are the non-club swimmer parents and usually 10U non-club swim parents. Club swim parents know the deal and most of us aren’t super concerned about making summer swim A meets. Most of us also aren’t at practice at all and, if the pool requires us to be there, we are working in a corner. We’ve seen enough swim practices and meets not to want or need to watch kids swim 25 meters and stop at the wall for 10 minutes. (If we are actually being honest, most of us with club swimmers aren’t going to summer swim evening practices right now. We are paying out the wazoo for club, why would they go to summer swim with summer-only swimmers and stand around for 30 minutes?) And if our child swims club and is on a team where the depth precludes their swimming in A meets, we also already know that and, again, we aren’t trying to jockey for any position. Just being real here. |
Anonymous
| Parents that drop Benjis on private lessons want to see results. |