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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DS 13.5 is really struggling mentally with swimming. He is late to puberty and still looks and sounds like a young boy, while all the swimmers in his practice group are growing tall, strong, and hairy, and blowing him away in the pool. He loves swimming more than anything and is still very good, but he is becoming more and more discouraged that he cannot keep up physically with the earlier developers. To put it in perspective, DS is in the fastest group for his age, so many of the boys are there because their development has given them the physical strength to get the necessary cuts. I try to remind DS that even though he is a boy among men, he is STILL hanging in there and not far behind, still getting A+ times and NCSA AG cuts, and that when he finally starts developing he will see the same massive improvements the others are getting with development. It has just been a slog the past few years, inching along with tiny marginal improvements when other boys have really gone through the huge leaps that testosterone brings in the swimming/sports world. How can I encourage him to hang in there, especially when coaches seem to value the early developers above all and he feels like he is working hard every day for very little improvement?[/quote]

I have the same kid, except mine isn’t discouraged and is pretty happy that he is going to go into puberty later than the rest of his peers in terms of swimming. He won a lot when he was younger and now he is putting his head down and working hard because he knew this was coming. He is also 13.5 and his ped said he is just starting puberty.

I don’t understand the part of your post where you say he is struggling and making minimal gains, but he also has selective cuts - which is it? If it is both, I will guess that he is a kid who won everything at a younger age and is now being surpassed and is struggling to reconcile that with his image of himself as a fast swimmer. If so, you have to get to the root of the issue, which is why he swims. The value of swimming and any sport isn’t winning, it’s learning to work hard when you aren’t winning.  
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