what age is "too late" to try swim team?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't sign my 10 year old up for an intensive activity that he didn't enjoy, where he was far behind the other kids. It seems cruel.

I'm also not sure why swimming with legal strokes is a goal for a kid who doesn't like to swim. I'd keep him in swim classes until he's got good enough skills for safety, but beyond that, I'd put my effort into finding a sport or other physical activity that he loved and that would carry him through to adulthood.

This. And find him a private swim teacher to teach him how to use one stroke to get across the pool

[Anonymous]

I am PP, 17:50. It's only January--does your local high school have public pool hours thru out he school year? They might be able to assist you in finding a high school swim team member who could instruct/work with your son on the lap swimming.

[Anonymous]

It is not too late. Really. The advantage of a 10 year old is that you can explain why you want him/her to be on a swim team, i.e. you want him to become a very good swimmer who you do not have to worry about every time they jump into a pool or a lake. If your kid comes to love the sport and wants to work at it to become a competitive swimmer -- great. If not; no big deal. If it takes a few weeks for him to reach the point that he feels he is reasonably competent and ready to compete then wait until then to sign up for a meet. Although, I would say that once he can get so he can swim the required distances it really is not a big deal if he swims slowly. He won't be swimming for "points" so there is no pressure at all, and the kids always seemed to find the meets to be fun (although very long).

Sign him up.

[Anonymous]

I signed up for swim team when I was 15! They just opened a pool in our sub-division and my girlfriend talked me into it since she was going with her younger siblings. Granted, we were the only kids in our age bracket, and I hadn't swam since 2 or 3rd grade. It was great fun! But, a new sub-division pool is totally different from an established team. My current pool has a very good teen club & even dive team and what I did over 20 years ago would never fly. Make sure you pick a social club and that you have a supportive friend or two. I would sign them up. As I tell my DCs - I make them learn to swim, just like I make them wear a seatbelt - it could save their life, they need to know how to do it and be comfortable doing it.

[Anonymous]

This was me as a kid, so I just have to weigh in. I was 10 and could barely swim and we moved to a Place where all the kids could swim at age 4 and had been training for years. I stuck it out 3 years and hated every second. I never got to rest when training--the other kids would finish a set and get a couple minutes to catch their breath, but I was so far behind that by the time I'd finished, they'd already started the next set. I felt like I was drowning half the time. I did learn to swim but it was a miserable way to spend my summers. There are many swim instructors that do pre-swim team small group lessons that focus on getting kids to the point that they can swim laps decently. I recommends this instead. Or private lessons telling tE instructor what you hope to gain.

[Anonymous]

You can learn flip turns in an afternoon if you are pretty good in the water. I learned on my 1st day of swim team practice through the school (7th grade) and was consistently top 3-4 on my teams through HS. My area didn't have the summer pool clubs "swim teams" like they have here but they did have year rould clubs, which I eventually joined in HS and started doing summer swim through those clubs maybe in 8th- 9th grade.

I'm just saying that (not necessarily for OP but in general) that if you are decent in the water, you can catch up fast in swimming, the amount of time in the pool can really make a difference in the beginning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks everyone, I appreciate the honest responses. It sounds like putting him on the team could have the opposite effect from what I hoped to achieve. He has taken lessons consistently in the summers at ESF summer camp starting at age 4, and then once he switched to a different camp, private lessons through the teen lifeguards at our MoCo pool and sport & health gym. In none of these settings was he required to swim laps, and when I try to encourage him to do it, he strongly resists and I am reluctant to force him lest he hate swimming more. Both dh and I grew up around the water where everyone had fine swimming skills, whether or not they were on a swim team, so I view being a "safe" swimmer as one who has a strong freestyle and stami a in the water, not just one who can make it to the other end of the pool. I will definitely check out the programs listed - thanks! The stroke clinics I had looked at previously were 9 mo commitments and we just can't do that due to other sports commitments. I feel like I missed a window to encourage DS with swimming, but I am trying to look forward and know that it is never too late! But I will definitely get DD signed up for pre-team this summer . Thanks again.

You're near Georgetown Prep if you're going to ESF. Both Find and Tollefson Swimming offer classes there. Tollefeson definitely offers a stroke and turn class only for winter or spring (by session) not the whole 9 months.

[Anonymous]

Just a quiet vote here that if your DS doesn't like swimming laps, don't do swim team to teach him. Extra curricular activities are supposed to be stuff your like WANTS to do in their free time.....at least that's how it works in my house mostly

[Anonymous]

Also, you should know for swim meets, your 10 year old will be swimming with the 9/10 year old kids and that might hurt his confidence is the 9 year olds are much better. Just fyi

[Anonymous]

From what you describe, it doesn't sound like your child has strong enough swimming skills to be successful on a swim team. I'd do some more private lessons and then revisit.

[Anonymous]

From what you describe, it doesn't sound like your child has strong enough swimming skills to be successful on a swim team. I'd do some more private lessons and then revisit.

Just to elaborate - that is based upon our experience at our pool. My son even had to "try out" for the team as a 5 year old. He could swim but his form was really poor. They suggested he keep working and try out again at 6 years, at which point he was accepted onto the team.

[Anonymous]

my 10 and 14 yo kids swim summer team, and winter for conditioning (no meets). Swimming in NOVA is obsessive. If you don't love it, don't do it! It's gets tedious trying to ignore the swim parents constantly comparing their kids.

Summer swim is fun socially if you are not in the NVSL top divisions. Lower than Division 5 are the most fun. B meets are for slower swimmers and are the most laid-back, although they are lengthy and on Monday evenings.

Montgomery County MD similar issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:op here - thanks for the reply. to clarify, ds cannot swim 25m in freestyle - he can get down the length of the pool in a combo of freestyle, doggy paddle, tread and restart freestyle, sufficient to pass a swim test, but definitely not a straight lap of freestyle with rotary breathing. That is my goal for him, as well as to learn the basics of the other strokes. I just don't know how to help him achieve it other than swim team, since he never has to swim laps in lessons.

Get him in the pool NOW! You have months until summer swim team. Don't know what jurisdiction you are in but the county pools have all sorts of winter programs. SwimMontgomery is one example that comes to mind. Do some research in your area. Do NOT wait until summer swim team. He needs to at least be able to swim a 25m free by then or it will be awkward for him. You will be surprised how quickly he can achieve that if you get him to a pool 2x/week this winter/spring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can learn flip turns in an afternoon if you are pretty good in the water. I learned on my 1st day of swim team practice through the school (7th grade) and was consistently top 3-4 on my teams through HS. My area didn't have the summer pool clubs "swim teams" like they have here but they did have year rould clubs, which I eventually joined in HS and started doing summer swim through those clubs maybe in 8th- 9th grade.

I'm just saying that (not necessarily for OP but in general) that if you are decent in the water, you can catch up fast in swimming, the amount of time in the pool can really make a difference in the beginning.

Ugh -- I am the PP that had the bad experience in swim team. As I mentioned, I joined at age 9 and did it all summer for three straight years. I must have done thousands of flip turns, and never did get it right. I can't tell you home many times I hit my head, or came up in the wrong lane. Once I even came up in the wrong pool (only exaggerating a little -- I was half way across the dive well when I came up for water. I was a terrible swimmer so always in the last lane). This thread is giving me PTSD just thinking about it. The girls that were my peers on the swim team all ended up swimming in college, including one that swim for a Div 1 school that is famous for producing Olympic swimmers, so I really never did have a shot at being anything other than the worst one on the team. I think swimming is one of those sports where, if you're bad, it's just so, so painful. But I totally agree that everyone should learn how to swim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

From what you describe, it doesn't sound like your child has strong enough swimming skills to be successful on a swim team. I'd do some more private lessons and then revisit.

Just to elaborate - that is based upon our experience at our pool. My son even had to "try out" for the team as a 5 year old. He could swim but his form was really poor. They suggested he keep working and try out again at 6 years, at which point he was accepted onto the team.

Whereas our summer team is accepting of everyone. We have older kids who struggle across the pool, don't do flip turns (legal for freestyle), and end up with times approaching 2 mins for 50s. Those kids end up making the most tremendous progress over the course of a summer. No one else is cutting a minute off their 50 free time. One of those kids is now, at age 12, making A or AA times for many of his events. No, that's not going to be all of the kids who start out struggling but it's going to be enough. These are children.

Not every pool is accepting, I would consider my options carefully. There is no reason that someone shouldn't love something just because they're not terribly good at it. Swim team can be a lot of fun. There's no reason you have to be one of the fastest swimmers in order to love swimming on a swim team.

I would not put a struggling swimmer on a team like some of the above posters have described. It needs to be a fun experience for him.