Reply to Explain to me your thought process (parents) with being highly competitive with your swimmer

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The parents were probably competitive HS or college swimmers themselves and are trying to relive their glory days.[/quote]

IME it’s the opposite: parents who were good athletes, but not great, and they dump that unresolved tension on their kids.  Parents who are satisfied with their athletic history (myself included) don’t need to live anything through our kids, since we lived it ourselves.  I want all the great things about sports for my kids, e.g., hard work, camaraderie, persistence, etc.  Sports can show how much fun hard work can be and that’s a terrific thing to learn early.  As PPs said, it’s almost never parents who were themselves high-level swimmers, because they know how important technique and patience are.  This is a long game.[/quote]

+1
My swimmers happen to be in a cohort of top level kids who made it for the long haul. Almost all kids had one or both parents also compete at top levels, lots of swimmers as well as other sports. None of these parents are over the top, and most of them I have spent time with socially and truly believe they are not very different behind closed doors. We all steer clear of the yellers and highly competitive nuts. Some of the people who I have seen take it the absolute slowest with their kids over the years are those who swam in college. [/quote]

+1. My husband and I were both D1 swimmers (that's where we met) and our kids swam at low key teams until high school when they decided they wanted to consider swimming in college. This meant 2 practices a week until age 11, 3-4 at age 12 and 4-5 from 13-14. One didn't even start year round until age 10. Once they moved to high school they ramped up to 6 a week. Both now swim D1 and are still improving.

Generally, how fast a child is before puberty has very little bearing on how fast they will be in the long run. Parents who didn't swim at a high level don't seem to understand this.[/quote]

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