I think it’s important to note that developing leadership and teamwork skills are part of summer swim. It’s a rec sport, it’s not just about perfection. The 14 year old helping the six year old is as much of a priority as the six year old.

I don’t think teen or adult matters, but rather can they teach the strokes correctly. The American Red Cross offers a Water Safety Instructor (WSI) course that breaks down each stroke and teaches how to instruct students to swim each stroke. I only get private lessons for my children with coaches (no matter the age) who are WSI trained as I don’t want them picking up poor stroke habits.

Where can you even find a list of ‘professionals’ to call?

It depends on the team culture. For our team kids start volunteering as “mini coaches” working one on one with the kids learning to swim starting around age 12. Those 12-16 year olds get direct instruction from the assistant coaches and adult head coach.

Then around age 16 the best of those kids become lane/assistant coaches. So they have 4 summers of working with new swimmers before they are an assistant coach. Is that as good as an adult professional swim coach…maybe not…is that a great choice for the assistance coach who is teaching your 8 year old butterfly…absolutely.

We would much rather have some older colleges ages or older who are experienced and professional and mature. We would rather only have 3-5 older coaches and no high school coaches versus a ton of high school coaches. Our high school coaches aren’t great usually except for the seniors.

Anonymous wrote:In terms of getting my little kids with terrible form to actually learn to swim, I found the teens to be better than the adults. Maybe because they’re more fun? Or because I was cheap and able to pay for 1-1 lessons with the teens but did group lessons with the pros?

Anyway for literally learning to swim I thought the teen 1-1 and small group summer lessons were the best bang for the buck.

If your goal is competitive swimming I defer to others.

I was going to say the same thing. I have a teen sons who junior coach and teach lessons year round but isn't a club swimmer. He swims A meets on our smaller less competitive team, but is definitely not a superstar swimmer.

But he's a child whisperer. He's fantastic at helping kids get over their fear, great at motivating kids to push themselves as far as distance, and great at helping kids get legal in all 4 strokes.

If your kid is past those benchmarks then yes, a professional or a highly talented club kid with a perfect stroke is probably a better choice. But on the other hand, being able to do something, especially something you don't really remember learning (like a 16 year old who doesn't remember not being able to put their head in the water), doesn't always translate into being able to teach it, and dealing with little kids is an entirely different talent than swimming.

Anonymous wrote:If you’re asking in MCSL I would be more concerned about the lack of required background checks and safe sport training. The handbook recommends it, but not required. These teens have no training on how to work with groups of kids and in some cases they’re in the water helping swimmers. At the minimum they should be required to take the safe sport training.

I often see our teen coaches on their phones, eating dinner or playing basketball with another teen coach while the adults do the real work.

I think it’s also a conflict of interest when the teens are coaching their own age group.

At our pool we’ve seen professional adult coaches sit around and not do anything while kids working for pennies.

In terms of getting my little kids with terrible form to actually learn to swim, I found the teens to be better than the adults. Maybe because they’re more fun? Or because I was cheap and able to pay for 1-1 lessons with the teens but did group lessons with the pros?

Anyway for literally learning to swim I thought the teen 1-1 and small group summer lessons were the best bang for the buck.

If your goal is competitive swimming I defer to others.

We've had great luck with lessons from a teen on our team - of course YMMV. He's very fast, has great technique, has swam club forever, will get in the water with the kids, and is good at explaining and demonstrating small technique improvements.

My (now teens) learned to swim from a college student at our pool who was not actually on the swim team. It was probably $10-15/half hour private lesson but so worth it. They also had different series of stroke clinics with adult professional instructors. Those were good too.

My kid got some of his best swim lessons from teenage swimmers. You need to choose one that knows their stroke, it isn't always the fastest person and natural talent that is the best swim coach though. He has had the best luck with the fast but not fastest year round swimmers with very good technique, and an enthusiasm for the sport.

Of course a professional is usually better. And a professional nanny is usually better than an 18 year old babysitter, but sometimes you just want to pay 18 year old babysitter prices and sometimes you just want to sign your kid up for something to keep them busy. And sometimes you can’t be bothered to seek out a professional when the teenaged swim instructor is more convenient.

My 16 year old swimmer has helped coach younger swimmers and has given swim lessons to little kids since he was 14. He is a very good swimmer, but he’s not a trained coach. He gets private swim lessons from a coach who is excellent at teaching technique. That coach also trains professional swimmers and triathletes, and visits other coaches to learn from them.

But sometimes a teenager is perfect - they are fun, they will get in the water with the kids, they play games, they will toss the kid in the air, they will have energy and enthusiasm to teach that adults do not. Plus they are way cheaper. Expertise in a field has diminishing returns as a teacher when the skill level is closer to beginner. It’s better, but maybe not worth the cost.

Most 15 year olds don’t have the maturity and skills to be a summer swim coach. The college coaches are much better.

Anonymous wrote:If you’re asking in MCSL I would be more concerned about the lack of required background checks and safe sport training. The handbook recommends it, but not required. These teens have no training on how to work with groups of kids and in some cases they’re in the water helping swimmers. At the minimum they should be required to take the safe sport training.

I often see our teen coaches on their phones, eating dinner or playing basketball with another teen coach while the adults do the real work.

I think it’s also a conflict of interest when the teens are coaching their own age group.

I’ve seen good and bad teen coaches and if a parent is there and watching I would not worry as much about safe sport but the lack of background checks and skill are a concern. Our hs coach does not follow safe sport and has a private chat group parents cannot join on a private app.

If you’re asking in MCSL I would be more concerned about the lack of required background checks and safe sport training. The handbook recommends it, but not required. These teens have no training on how to work with groups of kids and in some cases they’re in the water helping swimmers. At the minimum they should be required to take the safe sport training.

I often see our teen coaches on their phones, eating dinner or playing basketball with another teen coach while the adults do the real work.

I think it’s also a conflict of interest when the teens are coaching their own age group.