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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If he doesn’t like 3 times a week as a 9 year old, he will really hate 4 times a week as an 11 year old. I would find out now if this is something he loves. Even though it seems logical that a 10/11 year old would find it easier to adjust to swim practice than a 9 year old, it is actually the opposite. By 10/11, many kids have been swimming for 2-3 years. I had one kid join at age 7 and one kid join at age 10, and[b] it was harder for my 10 year old to catch up to his age group.[/b]

My 7 year old played academy soccer twice a week and swam twice a week and loved both. When he turned 9, he moved from academy to a club team that practiced 2-3 times a week, and he swam 2-3 times a week. He wanted to swim more, but couldn’t because of soccer. He is now turning 13, and is giving up club soccer so he can focus on swim, but I’m glad he did both for 4 years, even though it was clear that he loved swim more than soccer. It kept him from being burned out and focused at swim practice. He will still play soccer at a lower level, but didn’t want to continue soccer practice 3 times a week.

That’s not to say that starting at age 10/11 won’t work - my older kid played basketball with club swim until 12 and is now 15. It took him longer, but he is now achieving the AAA times he has been dreaming about since he was 10. But it was harder for him than it was for my younger one. [/quote]

This is what my DH is arguing.  [/quote]

DP - it may be harder, but what are the trade-offs?  How important is it to your family that your kid excel at swim?  What's it worth?  Those are questions only you and your DH can answer, OP.  It's okay to prioritize family time or downtime or whatever else over optimizing your kid's swimming.  Humans typically can't optimize everything.[/quote]

I am the earlier poster and I agree everyone makes own priorities and no singular right answer. My post reflects my experience that my kids got locked out of teams they wanted to join (not just swimming) bc I couldn’t believe they would have to play year round already and resisted.

Maybe this was better in the end - we will never know - my kids mostly turned out fine, lol, but I do have one kid in particular who wishes I would have allowed her to do stuff earlier and thinks it held her back in an activity she loves (she never got on the team she wanted despite putting up stats to earn it) and I was not expecting that as a parent. And Insoet of broke on the youngest, allowing her to ramp up earlier than her siblings and ahe is the happiest in her sport by far.

I am just offering a nuanced perspective here to counter those who say only the crazies let their kids join teams young.  I thought that too and I realized I sort of wish I had allowed it based on their reactions to me later in life and the positive experience of my kid who I relented more on. In hindsight, trying stuff and quitting later may have been better, but then again, who knows.[/quote]

100% agree. We have four kids and our younger ones are definitely getting into sports - and at a more serious level - at a younger age than our two older ones. With my older ones I wanted to give them the gift of trying out different sports and just being a kid, rather than specializing. I was worried about them burning out, plus I thought it was a little crazy to invest so much time/energy/money into one thing. But in the end, it felt like my older kids were locked out of sports (not just swim) at the level they wanted because we didn't get them in early enough. Things like travel ball - the teams often keep the same rosters as the year before, so it's much harder to break in at an older age even if your kid is really good. Or swimming, it feels like it's so much harder to break in at say age 10 than it is at age 8. [/quote]
+1. I think when people say it’s harder to break into club swimming at an older age they mean break in at a more competitive club. It’s great that there are so many clubs of varying levels in the DMV, but if your swimmer is interested in trying to compete at a high level, breaking in at 10-11 is harder than 8-9. And yes, you can excel at one of the less competitive clubs and switch to a more competitive one if your kid ends up being fast, but that is disruptive if it’s less convenient or your kid has friends they don’t want to leave.[/quote]

And that kind of club switch is _extremely_ low percentage and requires breakout-level talent of the kind that makes competitive teams recruit you without a tryout.  It's impossible to count on that when you're debating whether to start club at age 7 or age 10.  If the kid has the slightest interest, start early and then stop or change clubs or groups if you have to.  But don't wait for them to be "readier" at the beginning or you're make it harder _on them_ to get in.[/quote]

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