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

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

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[quote=Anonymous]For those not familiar with club swimming, in addition to the serious time commitment of 2-2.5/hour practices up to 6-7 days a week starting at about age 10, there are the costs of upwards of $4,000 per year at higher levels.

In my opinion, club swimming MAY do a disservice to some swimmers and their families by not being forthcoming about a swimmer's potential (Sectionals, Jr. Nationals, Nationals, World Champs, Division I, National/Jr. National teams).

In our case we were always told when we asked that our older child should continue with another year as s/he was a possible college swimmer.  DC kept at it for far longer than s/he (in retrospect) should have -- when they were so good at other things that could have benefitted from more time.   Luckily, DC came to that reailization themself early in 9th grade and has gone one to use the time freed up by a non-starter swim career to flourish in every area of high school life.  DC has attained high levels of accomplishment in other activities that s/he would never have attained in swimming, or would never have been able to get in these other activities if they had continued with the time commitments of club swimming.

We are grateful for those early years of club swimming, though, as they were fun-filled, and taught DC a lot about hard work, goal-setting, accomplishments, time management, and a healthy lifestyle.  You just have to recognize when the right time to leave is, and that comes when your time could be better spent accomplishing greater things outside of swimming.[/quote]

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