Reply to Practice group move-ups

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[quote=Anonymous]In an ideal world, swim coaches welcome the conversation with parent and swimmer and are happy that a swimmer wants to move up. But in reality, many coaches are not the best at listening and get easily exasperated by any whiff of a parent questioning their coaching decisions. I’m only saying this so you can anticipate potential responses to asking about moving up.

To a coach, it’s obvious who needs to be moved up. I think parents think their kid should be moved up because 1) their kid is bored and is goofing off because practice is “too easy”, 2) their friend(s) have moved up and have faster race times, or 3) their friend(s) have moved up and have slower race times.  But to a coach, those are not good reasons to move a kid up. Kids who are motivated will run over other kids in their lane if the sets are too easy. They will ask for faster intervals or do fly instead of back.  Also, there are certain technical goals that coaches want swimmers to achieve before moving up.

Kids who are capable of making intervals but they don’t push themselves, kids who wait on the wall to socialize, kids who go to the bathroom for a long time, kids who skip sets, kids who space out and don’t listen, kids who never swim breast or fly if they can help it - these are the kids who are not moved up. Attending every practice is great, but many kids attend every practice and hang out on the wall with their friends and are more concerned with socializing than working.

If your swimmer is at least 10/11, I would include them in the conversation. Contact the coach and ask for a meeting time. Don’t ask them on the deck or during a swim meet. Send an email and ask for you and your swimmer to meet with them to discuss their goals and progress. Let your swimmer come up with a list of goals and ask the coach what they can do to achieve them. If your swimmer doesn’t want to do this, then I would wait on the whole moving up thing until they do. I would also watch a few practices to get a sense of how your kid approaches practice. Many kids don’t realize that attendance is not enough. I believe in the process for the most part, but if  the coach does not listen to your kid in the meeting, I would consider leaving. Swim is tough, and every swimmer should have a coach that believes in their potential. [/quote]

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