Competitive (Club) Swimming -- At what point is it fine for a child to leave a longtime sport?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think most parents believe math is covered and paid for in school. Swimming is not. Parents are already paying taxes for their children to learn math or are actually paying a private school to teach them. Many also hire tutors or do belong to these competition math groups. This obsession with math beyond traditional school teaching (competitions etc) is a recent phenomenon. Getting along with others is something all children should learn. Swimming is a life safety skill. Not all children need to be extremely quick at math. They just need to understand it.

The visual and performing arts are woefully underserved by our schools. Why not the same investment in those?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most parents believe math is covered and paid for in school. Swimming is not. Parents are already paying taxes for their children to learn math or are actually paying a private school to teach them. Many also hire tutors or do belong to these competition math groups. This obsession with math beyond traditional school teaching (competitions etc) is a recent phenomenon. Getting along with others is something all children should learn. Swimming is a life safety skill. Not all children need to be extremely quick at math. They just need to understand it.

I would argue that math and science are also "life safety skills" in this world, but we do not think of them as such. If you want to achieve a basic level of proficiency in math and the sciences, as you do and can with most subjects through the regular school day then, yes, you would not need outside supplementation through extracurricular academic programs. But if you just want your child to achieve a basic level of proficiency in swimming, as a "life safety skill", then you do not need to invest $2,000+ in annual club fees, when swim classes at the Y or even a private swim instructor for 4 hours a week would do just fine. How is it the we have a base 300,000+ strong willing to invest in making their child a "better" swimmer, but no such base of support exists in these other important areas?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Mom of the 8 year old here.... Thank you so much for the advice. He did do winter swimming but at the end of the summer season gets beat out by a few athletic kids that did not winter swim and have more natural ability. And also more time over the summer to practice....

Anyways, we are only in for a few hours a week at this point so we will keep it up since he likes it. I hear there are some kids that are so good when they start that when things start to get tough they quit. We definitely wont be having that problem!

No one needs or wants him to be a superstar since there are other activities and academic stuff that he excels at. I just don't want him to end up feeling bad about himself, or spend a lot of time doing something that in the long run just isn't his thing. I guess its too early to say at this point so we will stick with it.


I want my kids to do things that they are bad at and have to work hard to be good at. My kids excel at a lot of stuff. I don't want them to only do stuff that is easy because I want them to learn to work for their goals. I wasn't really challenged in school until I got to college and then the whole "Wait, I have to work?" experience was disorienting and a shock to the system.


Totally agree. I will be thrilled if my LO does any kind of competitive swimming because think swimming is a life skill. Being a strong swimmer opens up so many doors - you can do all kinds of water sports, triathlons, sail and jus plain enjoy the beach and lake!

+1

My mom made me be on the swim team when I was 8 and 9. I did not particularly enjoy it and was a very mediocre swimmer. In retrospect, I am so glad I was encouraged to do it. I just finished my first triathlon and am considering joining a masters swim group in the fall. I excelled at many things growing up, but athletics was definitely not one of them. Having a solid foundation in swimming, and learning that becoming better at something that does not come naturally is a good end in and of itself, have both served me well in life. If your son is still enjoying swimming, by all means, encourage him along!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most parents believe math is covered and paid for in school. Swimming is not. Parents are already paying taxes for their children to learn math or are actually paying a private school to teach them. Many also hire tutors or do belong to these competition math groups. This obsession with math beyond traditional school teaching (competitions etc) is a recent phenomenon. Getting along with others is something all children should learn. Swimming is a life safety skill. Not all children need to be extremely quick at math. They just need to understand it.

I would argue that math and science are also "life safety skills" in this world, but we do not think of them as such. If you want to achieve a basic level of proficiency in math and the sciences, as you do and can with most subjects through the regular school day then, yes, you would not need outside supplementation through extracurricular academic programs. But if you just want your child to achieve a basic level of proficiency in swimming, as a "life safety skill", then you do not need to invest $2,000+ in annual club fees, when swim classes at the Y or even a private swim instructor for 4 hours a week would do just fine. How is it the we have a base 300,000+ strong willing to invest in making their child a "better" swimmer, but no such base of support exists in these other important areas?

PP, I don't understand what point you are making. Are you saying, how come some people go to a lot of trouble and expense to put their children in a competitive swim program but don't do the same to put their children in a competitive academic program? Or are you saying, if the US put as much effort in academic competitions as they do in swimming, the US would get as many medals in the Math Olympics as in the swimming Olympics? Or...? These seem like reasonable topics for discussion to me, but I don't understand how they relate to the OP's question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Mom of the 8 year old here.... Thank you so much for the advice. He did do winter swimming but at the end of the summer season gets beat out by a few athletic kids that did not winter swim and have more natural ability. And also more time over the summer to practice....

Anyways, we are only in for a few hours a week at this point so we will keep it up since he likes it. I hear there are some kids that are so good when they start that when things start to get tough they quit. We definitely wont be having that problem!

No one needs or wants him to be a superstar since there are other activities and academic stuff that he excels at. I just don't want him to end up feeling bad about himself, or spend a lot of time doing something that in the long run just isn't his thing. I guess its too early to say at this point so we will stick with it.


I want my kids to do things that they are bad at and have to work hard to be good at. My kids excel at a lot of stuff. I don't want them to only do stuff that is easy because I want them to learn to work for their goals. I wasn't really challenged in school until I got to college and then the whole "Wait, I have to work?" experience was disorienting and a shock to the system.


Totally agree. I will be thrilled if my LO does any kind of competitive swimming because think swimming is a life skill. Being a strong swimmer opens up so many doors - you can do all kinds of water sports, triathlons, sail and jus plain enjoy the beach and lake!

+1

My mom made me be on the swim team when I was 8 and 9. I did not particularly enjoy it and was a very mediocre swimmer. In retrospect, I am so glad I was encouraged to do it. I just finished my first triathlon and am considering joining a masters swim group in the fall. I excelled at many things growing up, but athletics was definitely not one of them. Having a solid foundation in swimming, and learning that becoming better at something that does not come naturally is a good end in and of itself, have both served me well in life. If your son is still enjoying swimming, by all means, encourage him along!

I think that the some of the previous posters are talking about a different level of commitment than you experienced so positively. I do not know if you were enrolled in year-round club swimming or only summer club swimming as a child, but there is a big difference. The year-round competitive clubs require a greater level of commitment both financially, as in in $1,400 and up for annual dues, and physically, as in practicing anywhere from 6-21 hours a week, depending on your level.

The swim numbers posted by a previous poster suggest that year-round competitive swimming has a great number of swimmers, and not all of them obviously are great. In fact, most swimmers are likely like you were, simply okay. The problem for some children and their families happens when they stay in competitive swimming for years on end, and it sounds that like your mom got the timing just perfect at about two years of involvement. That is just enough time to become a good swimmer for safety and fitness, but not so much time that you start to resent the time and financial commitment if you are just an average swimmer. With swimmers numbering over 300,000, it is likely that many of those are just average swimmers for whom 2-3 years of involvement max will result in the positive feelings you still have for the sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are the competitive area swim clubs so successful at getting parents to pay thousands of dollars of fees per year for programs where it seems that the same principle would apply as to our academic teams. (I.e., they are open to everyone, but are of greatest benefit to the most talented participants)?

Swimming is an individual as well as a team sport. The "supporting players" may not be earning points for their team but they get to participate in meets, they participate in practice, they improve their technique and their times and their endurance.

Those same parents would likely not pay if their children did not get to participate (e.g. if they only got to attend practice and never compete in a meet, if they weren't challenged and taught how to improve technique and times, etc) fully.

My child is not a star swimmer but aside from the competitive qualifying meets, she gets the same experience as a star swimmer. She might not get the same amount of access to the "best" coaches, if you consider only their stats on coaching star swimmers, but she gets the same amount of access to excellent coaches who suit where she is in swimming.

USA Swimming, the regional governing bodies (e.g., PVS), and the local, year-round, competitive club swim teams (e.g., RMSC, NCAP, The Fish, Machine, NOVA, Sea Devils), and the summer leagues (Prince Mont, MCSL, NVSL) have done an excellent job of recruiting an incredibly large base of young age-group swimmers. Swimming is now the second-most popular organized sport in the country for children. Last year (2012), membership in USA Swimming increased to a total of 300,884 active, year-round competitive swimmers across this nation. (Of the less than 50% who self-reported their ethnicity, .5% identified themselves as African American, 1.5% identified as Latino, 2.7% identified as Asian, and 20.1% identified as White).

Swimming's effective recruitment of an incredibly large (if not diverse) population of young swimmers is the single most important reason why U.S. swimming continues to outperform and dominate every other country in the world. First, because when you cast a wide net, you are bound to catch some very good fish. More U.S. children experience organized competitive swimming, at some point in their youth, than all but one other sport (soccer?). And I would argue that those who do engage in organized swimming have a more serious experience of it than those who attempt organized soccer (through AYSO, and local city or county leagues when they are very young).

In addition to catching some of the very best swimmers with the wide net it casts, swimming supports its most talented swimmers through the "subsidies" that the not-so-talented swimmers provide in annual club fees ($3,000+/yr.), and USA Swimming dues (approx. $60/annual to national and club). In no other sport does a base 300,884 athletes strong help to support through their fees and dues the top-level coaching and competition that USA Swimming does. Gymnasts and figure skaters, for example, often have to pay large, out-of-pocket-fees for their top-level coaching. In part, this is because swimming can be organized on a larger scale (pools are big, staggered practices provide more time still, and the star clubs can hire less-recognized coaches for the junior groups).

Take a top-level area talent competing on the national or world stage. That swimmer commands more of his/her coaches' and club's time than $4,000+ they pay in dues every year. In fact, if coaches charged their top-level swimmers by the hours spent, it would be prohibitively expensive for those swimmers. The less-talented, but still enthusiastic, competitive swimmer also gets much benefit, but could probably attain the same level of enjoyment and fitness with less hours. In most cases, this majority of average competitive swimmers gets less in value than the $3,000+ that they pay annually.

Getting back to the comment above, to which I am responding, I do not know why the same principles of mass support cannot be/are not translatable to academic teams on which everyone can compete, or even other sports in which everyone can join.

Must be something in the water, I guess.

Interesting food for thought.

[Anonymous]

I was a competitive club swimmer for 10 years, from age 8 until age 18.

I started out well for my age group at 8, in that I could already swim the strokes, and finished out my swim career as an average swimmer.

I wish that I had told my parents in middle school that I did not want to continue club swimming. The sport really took a lot of my time and my family's time, and though I am grateful for the lifelong focus on health and exercise that it gave me, it also took a lot out of me.

In high school I worked very hard simply to maintain my excellent grades while attending 18 hours of swim practice a week.

I recognized that I was giving up on other things that I had wanted to undertake, like the musicals or summer cultural programs, and it was very frustrating that for all my practice and effort I was never going to get more than two sectionals cuts.

I look fondly back on my summer swim days and my early club years, but looking back I know that I should have continued only summer swimming and moved on to other extracurriculars by 8th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a competitive club swimmer for 10 years, from age 8 until age 18.

I started out well for my age group at 8, in that I could already swim the strokes, and finished out my swim career as an average swimmer.

I wish that I had told my parents in middle school that I did not want to continue club swimming. The sport really took a lot of my time and my family's time, and though I am grateful for the lifelong focus on health and exercise that it gave me, it also took a lot out of me.

In high school I worked very hard simply to maintain my excellent grades while attending 18 hours of swim practice a week.

I recognized that I was giving up on other things that I had wanted to undertake, like the musicals or summer cultural programs, and it was very frustrating that for all my practice and effort I was never going to get more than two sectionals cuts.

I look fondly back on my summer swim days and my early club years, but looking back I know that I should have continued only summer swimming and moved on to other extracurriculars by 8th grade.

I think that most parents would think long and hard before enrolling an average student in an AP Chemistry course, and would probably decide against it. But it appears from your comment that we give not a lot of thought to enrolling an average swimmer in the equivalent of an AP Swim course. It does not always make sense to push a normal child to do honors work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
And yet I do not think that the parents who willingly pay $2,000+ in annual fees to swim programs for their kids to socialize and become "better" swimmers, would necessarily make the same investment for their child to become "better" in the academics or arts.

You might be surprised. While my child's year-round swim fees are less than $2,000, we pay more than her swim fees for art instruction, and we pay about the same as we pay in swim fees for music instruction.

I do believe you'll find different families prioritize different things (we do not, for example, pay for out-of-school language instruction, because my child has shown minimal interest in it and we find we prioritize other things), but many families - including swim families - prioritize other things in addition to swim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And yet I do not think that the parents who willingly pay $2,000+ in annual fees to swim programs for their kids to socialize and become "better" swimmers, would necessarily make the same investment for their child to become "better" in the academics or arts.

You might be surprised. While my child's year-round swim fees are less than $2,000, we pay more than her swim fees for art instruction, and we pay about the same as we pay in swim fees for music instruction.

I do believe you'll find different families prioritize different things (we do not, for example, pay for out-of-school language instruction, because my child has shown minimal interest in it and we find we prioritize other things), but many families - including swim families - prioritize other things in addition to swim.

Wow! Based on your post, your family spends almost $6,000 on extracurricular activities for one young child alone! This suggests that 1) we have a wealthy population in "this town"; and 2) club swimming remains largely a sport for the affluent.

Older swimmers pay higher club fees, and if you have 2 or 3 children involved in the swimming, your family may be paying as much as $12,000 on just this one extracurricular sport.

[Anonymous]

Half hour private piano lessons run around $35. That's close to $2000 if you have a lesson every week and it's only for 1/2 hour a time. Kumon I think runs around the same amount every week. I don't get why people think swimming is so much more expensive or that others don't invest in the arts. Swimming makes you fit and keeps you healthy. Neither art nor math really does anything for your body. I do not think Kumon math or Math Counts is really a life safety skill either. School is all about sitting all day and using your brain. Shouldn't we use the rest of our bodies too? I remember listening to one podcast where college professors were described as only living in their heads.

[Anonymous]

Sports is also where my child was first introduced to multiplication, division, decimals, and fractions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Half hour private piano lessons run around $35. That's close to $2000 if you have a lesson every week and it's only for 1/2 hour a time. Kumon I think runs around the same amount every week. I don't get why people think swimming is so much more expensive or that others don't invest in the arts. Swimming makes you fit and keeps you healthy. Neither art nor math really does anything for your body. I do not think Kumon math or Math Counts is really a life safety skill either. School is all about sitting all day and using your brain. Shouldn't we use the rest of our bodies too? I remember listening to one podcast where college professors were described as only living in their heads.

Most swimmers involved in the year-round swim clubs are paying far north of $2,000/year. The average is probably closer to $3,500/year if I had to guess. That it is the cost per child, per year. The family of a competitive swimmer who sticks with club swimming for ten years will have paid close to $35,000, and again if your family has more than one child you could be looking at $70,000-$100,000 investment over their lifetime of swimming. That kind of commitment is certainly worth it if your child excels at the sport, but perhaps not worth it if your swimmer is the average, good, or solid swimmer.

Again, if you want your child to swim only so that it "makes them fit or keeps them healthy" (i.e., primarily for recreational or social purposes), then there are far more cost-effective ways to do so than committing $35,000 to club swimming over your DC's childhood years.

If you do not think that is a substantial investment of money then I do not know what to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Half hour private piano lessons run around $35. That's close to $2000 if you have a lesson every week and it's only for 1/2 hour a time. Kumon I think runs around the same amount every week. I don't get why people think swimming is so much more expensive or that others don't invest in the arts. Swimming makes you fit and keeps you healthy. Neither art nor math really does anything for your body. I do not think Kumon math or Math Counts is really a life safety skill either. School is all about sitting all day and using your brain. Shouldn't we use the rest of our bodies too? I remember listening to one podcast where college professors were described as only living in their heads.

If you read the previous posts carefully, they do not say that individual parents or families "don't invest in the arts." Other posters have simply made the point that there is not another youth organization (for academics, the arts, or even other sports) with membership 300,844+ strong, whose members are willing to pay relatively large annual fees for training, instruction, clubs, pools, and coaches which most benefit the sport's best athletes.

Other posters have lamented the fact there is no similar national (not individual families) base of support in great numbers to subsidize programs for our best students, our most talented musicians, or our great young artists.

[Anonymous]

If I'm not good enough to be at Level XX, I'll change to another activity where I'll be at Level XX ~ that's all about ego.

I wouldn't encourage that attitude for an activity which is suppose to bring joy to leisure time. IF that mind-set were coming solely from the competitor (the child, a teen), that might be different.