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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a parent of older swimmers, pls don’t ever post about your kid winning when they are age group swimmers.  Swimming is a long game and you don’t want your kid’s identity to be about the winning - Even to grandparents or close friends who will love your kid no matter what.  If your kid continues to succeed, the older accomplishments will likely get highlighted by their high school or college.  And if they quit or fall off, you will be grateful you didn’t define them by their wins when they were younger so your kid now feels like a failure.

Celebrate age group champs with your kid in person (be proud of the work ethic, being a good teammate, race strategy and time drop) but don’t lose sight of the fact the swimming is for them, not for you.  Your job is to raise a kind human and good citizen who can function in society.  Their success in swimming is their own and not yours. 
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Sanest swim parent ever. Bravo![/quote]

+1. This is the correct attitude. It is 100% right that if your child has long-term success, it will be recognized by outside entities. The braggy parents think they are just being supportive and proud by sharing their kids' successes widely. Kids will feel that, even if it's subconscious, as pressure to keep succeeding whether you mean it to or not. I have seen firsthand how damaging the parental overinvestment is for athletes whose peak success was in their younger years. They feel that they are disappointing their parents when they fall off their previous trajectory and the sport stops being a positive experience for them. Kids aren't stupid. If they see you are so invested in what they are doing that you're posting about it on social media, they are going to feel pressure.

What other parents think about your posts is not what matters. The kind of message the child gets from your posting is what you need to worry about. [/quote]

Well, life is a long game.   I guess we should never post about any accomplishment/milestone as it will be seen as undue pressure on our child.    We should never celebrate any accomplishments, big or small. I guess every child is a snowflake and should never experience failure or disappointment.  [/quote]

I am the the poster with older swimmers and correct, I would recommend not posting about sports results at all for reasons I outlined but there are lots of other ways to celebrate accomplishments in-person (which my original post clearly mentions).  Your pivot to stuff about special snowflakes doesn’t make sense.  We are talking about not posting results, especially good ones.  Those kids wouldn’t be fragile in the moment.  This is about helping kids have a long-term healthy relationship with sports.  The glibness of your reply doesn’t further your argument.  [/quote]

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