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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was pretty good at age 10, then the other girls grew taller and stronger and left tiny me in their wake. I became a synchro swimmer.

Let her enjoy swimming now without pressure, and give her the opportunity to try other sports as well, the same way as Caeleb Dressel did. He even took an extended break in his teens.

When I was swimming, some of the best kids quit at age 12/13 because they were sick of it.[/quote]

Yep. I was on the other side of this. Just ok at 10 years old... pretty good but not the best at one stroke, and that was it. Very different story at 14-15 years old. I was tall but scrawny as a kid, so I would get beaten by the shorter but more solidly built girls. I just kept at it because I enjoyed it, while also doing other things. Then I got to high school and the shorter girls also got curvy which caused them to plateau, and my height and relative lack of curves became a big advantage. Because I was still improving and becoming more versatile beyond my best stroke, I was motivated to keep working hard. Meanwhile the girls who had early success were getting burned out and frustrated, and started wanting to do other things with their time. These same girls tended to have parents who were very into it and pushed them, traveled to lots of extra meets, etc., because they got excited about that early success. If you had told me at age 10 that by age 15-16 I would end up being faster than certain girls who were sooo fast (like people thought they'd be going to the Olympics one day), I never would have believed it.

There are always the kids who start fast and stay fast, like Ledecky and Phelps. But there are many more who are fast before puberty and then fall off, only to be overtaken by kids who were not on anyone's radar once puberty hits. You really don't know which kind of kid you have so it's much better to just let the coach handle things and simply support your child as long as they're enjoying it. [/quote]

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