Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately at a lot of pools with big swim teams like that, newer swimmers in older age groups are pretty much left to flounder. And 8 is older at some of these pools, crazily. Your girls were probably practicing the strokes incorrectly all season with no instructions. Otherwise, they would have improved a lot more.

This IME. my kids did summer swim for the first time last year (age 7 and 9) and this was my experience.

They had fun and improved their confidence and endurance but I wouldn’t say their swimming skills improved much.

If you want them to get better at this age you’ll have to do lessons, most likely.

My kids are good/safe swimmers but aren’t truly interested in competing etc so we didn’t do team this summer. I did sign them up for some stroke refinement classes over the summer and will probably continue doing that every summer for awhile. They are more interested in other sports.

In short, it just depends what you want your kids to “get out of it”. If they are happy and having fun- great. If you want them to be competitive you’ll definitely have to do more.

Oh and PS: your kids’ times are pretty similar to where my kids were last year. Not bad swimmers but one of the slowest in their groups for sure. Except my DD9 was naturally quite good/fast at backstroke with great form. She has obvious flaws in her freestyle technique which is why she was slower (similar to yours- times in the high 50s). My 7yo was slow at everything...again it was just obvious flaws in his stroke. Both kids very athletic so it wasn’t that.

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately at a lot of pools with big swim teams like that, newer swimmers in older age groups are pretty much left to flounder. And 8 is older at some of these pools, crazily. Your girls were probably practicing the strokes incorrectly all season with no instructions. Otherwise, they would have improved a lot more.

This IME. my kids did summer swim for the first time last year (age 7 and 9) and this was my experience.

They had fun and improved their confidence and endurance but I wouldn’t say their swimming skills improved much.

If you want them to get better at this age you’ll have to do lessons, most likely.

My kids are good/safe swimmers but aren’t truly interested in competing etc so we didn’t do team this summer. I did sign them up for some stroke refinement classes over the summer and will probably continue doing that every summer for awhile. They are more interested in other sports.

In short, it just depends what you want your kids to “get out of it”. If they are happy and having fun- great. If you want them to be competitive you’ll definitely have to do more.

Anonymous wrote:Were your kids legal in all 4 strokes when the season started? Or did they go from not knowing all 4 to legal and dropping a few seconds?

I have kids this age who swim in the summer. Our experience tells me that they often drop 10 or more seconds once they really master a legal stroke. As they get older, big drops are rare. But so are DQs!

If they swim next summer, you might sign them up for one or two private lessons with their age group coach at the start of the season. This helps the swimmer because they get to know the coach better and understand what they're saying during practice. It helps the coach because they get to work with your swimming more intensively and have some time to fix a problem that they can watch during practice. It also shows the coach what your child does well.

OP said they were both new to the swim team, and they only swam/had times for free and back, which is pretty typical for brand new swimmers.

Were your kids legal in all 4 strokes when the season started? Or did they go from not knowing all 4 to legal and dropping a few seconds?

I have kids this age who swim in the summer. Our experience tells me that they often drop 10 or more seconds once they really master a legal stroke. As they get older, big drops are rare. But so are DQs!

If they swim next summer, you might sign them up for one or two private lessons with their age group coach at the start of the season. This helps the swimmer because they get to know the coach better and understand what they're saying during practice. It helps the coach because they get to work with your swimming more intensively and have some time to fix a problem that they can watch during practice. It also shows the coach what your child does well.

I would rather they have good technique and drop three seconds than have crappy technique and drop 15 seconds.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids who are new to swim team, that is less improvement than I would expect over the season.

I don't understand how kids could practice that much and improve so little.

If I practice checkers every day but compete in a chess tournament every week, I might not be any better at chess at the end of the summer.

As a previous thread earlier this summer established, swim team is not swimming lessons. Similarly, my kid's orchestra is not the same as instrument lessons. (In fact, the orchestra requires participants to take private lessons on the side. Luckily summer swim team is more relaxed than that!)

Anonymous wrote:For kids who are new to swim team, that is less improvement than I would expect over the season.

I don't understand how kids could practice that much and improve so little.

For kids who are new to swim team, that is less improvement than I would expect over the season.

My dc only improved after doing private lessons. His first summer, I thought they were working on that during the daily swim practice. Nope. He barely improved all summer. Second year we did private lessons in the beginning of the summer so he was practicing correctly. Made a huge difference. He also started older (11) and I think the swim teams don’t teach the stroke techniques to the kids well. Or maybe just the younger kids.

My kids started at the same age, and neither dropped much time over the first season. Practices tired them out a ton, so they were getting good exercise, but it didn't necessarily mean faster times. They started having better time drops in later summers, especially once they got a little more help with their strokes.

Also, good form makes a huge difference! If you don't want to do stroke and turn classes all year (or in the spring before summer swimming), you might want to consider some one-on-one lessons, like those offered by older swimmers at our pool. Proper technique will help them move more smoothly through the water.

Another honest assessment.

It’s hard for kids who are competitive swimmers (let’s say year round swimmers/A meet swimmers) to cut 3 seconds over the course of a summer season in a stroke that they commonly swim. For kids who are middle of the pack, maybe those who have experience with summer swim but don’t swim year round (but who focus on improving their time), 3 seconds sounds about right.

For inexperienced swim team members new to the whole thing, I would expect them to cut more than 3 seconds from their initial time over the summer, especially a 10 year old. This isn’t to say that those swimmers won’t cut tons more time in the future, but as a parent I would consider getting them some private stroke instruction because it sounds like some focused stroke refinement could help them catch up with the pack.

If my kids practiced five days a week for two months and didn’t get faster, I would be perplexed too. Did the coaches work with them at practice, correct their form, etc.?

Are your kids trying to swim fast? I've been a swim parent for a long time and a lot of little kids are just trying to get across the pool. Maybe that's all your kids were trying to do. I see kids who make huge improvements over one season; I see other kids who have been on the team for years and are still really slow. Most of the ones who are really slow just don't know how to race and, frankly, don't care. I'm sorry, but it doesn't take a lot of technique to swim a 25 back or a 50 free. I see kids with terrible technique who still swim faster than that because they try. Little kids sometimes need to be reminded that they are trying to swim fast...that sounds crazy, but that is my experience.

Being completely honest, which I think is what you are looking for, 3 seconds is not a big improvement, especially not for the 10 year old. Not to say your kids aren't athletic or they didn't have fun! Swimmers are often off by 1-3 seconds just week to week, so I would doubt if the times are actually significantly statistically different.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Did great.

A few seconds at those times is basically no progress at all (think how much the mechanical timers vary).

Simmer down tiger mom. Stopwatches don’t very by three seconds.