Anonymous wrote:Summer swim right around the corner. Get ready for all of the crazy 10 and under parents who think their kid is going to the Olympics because they won 50 free at an A meet once.

As the OP of last year's "summer swim brings out the crazy" thread, I can't wait.

Anonymous wrote:Ours divides by three age groups: 8U, 9-12 and 13+. In extreme circumstances, kids practice up because the same age group practice just doesn’t work. They are so much faster that they consistently get stuck if they stay in their age group.

+1. I’ve got a club swimmer with a June birthday. He wasn’t practicing with the 9-10s last year when he had just turned 11 and swimming in the 9-10 age group. He was already faster than all but one or two 11-12 swimmers.

My guess is that some 12U parents feel slighted by their kid (not moving up/in a lane with a kid that moved up, or whatever scenario). I'm willing to bet 99% of your time that your kid doesn't share their feeling of getting shafted.

Like so many others, we group by age - 8 & under, 9-12, 13-18. We’ve always had a handful of kids who go to a different practice (siblings, 13 year olds who are still competing as a 12 because of summer birthdays, etc) but it’s not a lot of kids. I think some coaches are better than others at having different lanes to meet different needs. A good coach might have a more advanced lane or two, a middle group, and a lane that needs extra help.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The truth is the fastest kids are largely not swimming summer league practices, so this really is a non-issue. My child is one of these our team slated as needing to workout with the 13+ swimmers, but she’ll be at club practice during that time anyway. (Yes, there are the occasional swimmers who do not practice with their club team in summer.)

Not the PP, but my impression is the chorus of complaints and/or eye rolls are from 12U parents. By 13, the kids have already sorted themselves out.

Mine is 11, and her whole relay is slated to practice with the 13+, but none of them are really going to be there because of club practice. So people could make a thing of it (why, I don’t know), but it’s ultimately a non-issue. I think this kind of thing is probably more glaring, leaving 12U parents to argue in their fishbowl, on smaller teams with fewer club swimmers.

The issue that can present on teams who have a lot of club swimmers is that not all club swimmers are the most advanced swimmers. A healthy portion of swimmers in NVSL and MCSL also swim various levels of club, but not all are advanced or even particularly fast. (That’s why the sport is great — there is a place for everyone.) So the “club swimmers demarcation line” on these teams doesn’t work, and then parents get mad that some club swimmers are moved up, while others have to swim in their age group. But if you zoom in enough, like PPs have said, the advanced club swimmers (even 12Us) are not going to summer swim team practice (some exceptions apply, ie, club teams that do not require LC enrollment). And the advanced swimmers get hurt in practice groups with kids far slower and less technical. It’s a safety issue to put 10 kids in a lane and a club swimmer who has to basically stop and walk because they get kicked otherwise.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The truth is the fastest kids are largely not swimming summer league practices, so this really is a non-issue. My child is one of these our team slated as needing to workout with the 13+ swimmers, but she’ll be at club practice during that time anyway. (Yes, there are the occasional swimmers who do not practice with their club team in summer.)

Not the PP, but my impression is the chorus of complaints and/or eye rolls are from 12U parents. By 13, the kids have already sorted themselves out.

Mine is 11, and her whole relay is slated to practice with the 13+, but none of them are really going to be there because of club practice. So people could make a thing of it (why, I don’t know), but it’s ultimately a non-issue. I think this kind of thing is probably more glaring, leaving 12U parents to argue in their fishbowl, on smaller teams with fewer club swimmers.

Anonymous wrote:Ours splits it up by age group. There are fast swimmers and less fast swimmers in every group, so they can still divide up the lanes by ability. It seems to work well socially this way. Even the strongest club swimmers sign up for summer swim because it's a fun time to hang out with their friends, not because they're getting serious development from it.

This was our experience as well. We had only two groups for the regular team - 10&u, 11+.

Advanced 10s would sometimes be given the option to go with older kids, I personally kept my kids with their peers. They were advanced swimmers who didn't go to every summer team practice as it was, so I wanted them with their age group.

Anonymous wrote:The truth is the fastest kids are largely not swimming summer league practices, so this really is a non-issue. My child is one of these our team slated as needing to workout with the 13+ swimmers, but she’ll be at club practice during that time anyway. (Yes, there are the occasional swimmers who do not practice with their club team in summer.)

Not the PP, but my impression is the chorus of complaints and/or eye rolls are from 12U parents. By 13, the kids have already sorted themselves out.

The truth is the fastest kids are largely not swimming summer league practices, so this really is a non-issue. My child is one of these our team slated as needing to workout with the 13+ swimmers, but she’ll be at club practice during that time anyway. (Yes, there are the occasional swimmers who do not practice with their club team in summer.)

Until schools are out for the summer:
8 and under, 30 min
9-12, 35 min
13+, 35 min.

After school is out:
12 and under, 60 min
13+, 60 min

Not by age (though it tends to sort it out that way for the most part.)

Beginner (30m practice)
Intermediate (45m practice)
Advanced (75m practice)

Coaches are good about being flexible (within reason - a new swimmer isn't going to be successful in advanced practice)

And for relay prep, typically for the graduated relay all the kids are in the advanced (maybe the youngest is in intermediate sometimes and they stay for a bit.) For 8y and under relay those kids are typically all in the same practice.

“This is supposed to be for fun. If it’s just for fun, why do any work at all? It’s also supposed to be rewarding. It’s supposed to advance aquatic skills.

Nothing wrong with the fast 8&U swimming with the 9-10s. Half of them are just rising 3rd graders with summer birthdays swimming with their spring/winter/ fall birthday classmates.”

+1

It’s usually poor sports who think their child’s self esteem and world will collapse if a peer or two swims up, so they say snarky things like, “their parents must assume they are going to the Olympics”. No. They don’t. They just want their child to be able to move in the water, because it’s really not a fun experience to be stuck the whole practice. It isn’t that big of a deal and only ruins the experience for you and your child if you choose to let it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not all pools are the same. Some of the less competitive pools have so few fast swimmers, that a swimmer who swims each 25 thirty seconds faster than the other kids in their age group literally can’t swim if they stay in their same age practice. They just get stuck. Now make that a 50. They have nowhere to go. This isn’t true for the faster pools who have a range of kids at each age group, but it is for others. Broad brush generalizations are never helpful because each pool is going to have different dynamics going on. If a few kids get moved one age group, you have the choice whether to see that as a team-wrecking, fun-wrecking decision or to stay positive and keep summer swim fun. I would hope you wouldn’t let what the coach and another swimmer decide wreck your or your swimmer’s experience.

These are short races. There's no reason a fast 8U kid can't go first in their lane and finish a 25 or 50 without running into other kids. This is just supposed to be for fun. They're not training for the Olympics.
.

This is supposed to be for fun. If it’s just for fun, why do any work at all? It’s also supposed to be rewarding. It’s supposed to advance aquatic skills.

Nothing wrong with the fast 8&U swimming with the 9-10s. Half of them are just rising 3rd graders with summer birthdays swimming with their spring/winter/ fall birthday classmates.

That's not isolated to summer swim. It's endemic to NOVA. Until you see the how talented people are all over the country, ignorance is bliss.

Summer swim right around the corner. Get ready for all of the crazy 10 and under parents who think their kid is going to the Olympics because they won 50 free at an A meet once.