To not pursue my child’s “incredible” swimming skill

[Amibeingdaft81]

Single mum, two children. One of whom is an exceptional swimmer. From that first lesson as a baby, she has utterly loved swimming and her swimming itself is unbelievably good.

She is now almost 9. She doesn’t do regular swim lessons. I buy the odd pack of 1-2-1 lessons and she has may be one every 4/5 weeks. She swims most weekends though, with her father, but purely recreational.

Anyway, at gym yesterday the teacher who has given her the 1-2-1s left a note at front desk to call him down when I next came to the gym. The first thing he said was “your daughter is the best swimmer I have ever taught by a significant margin”. He went on to say that although premature - he thinks she could be Olympian standard. He said that by not having her in a club I am doing her a disservice.

Here’s the dilemma. I’m a single working parent with no support network whatsoever. All going fairly well atm because I work damn hard at balancing all the balls and ruthlessly organised. Both children are keen sportspersons, very keen. This daughter is also very good at dross country and attends races, along with football and athletics. We are at capacity as to what I can balance.

She loves swimming and sport generally.

AIBU if I don’t pursue swimming as well? From what I can gather it’s a sport that involves very early starts and hours of training.

Tomorrow I'm poolside at LC course. 12 hours poolside/at the pool stewarding all the clubs swimmers for their races, recording times and making sure everyone makes their warm up. My ds is doing 4 races! A total of 4.5 minutes swimming (2x 50m and 2x100m).
I am part if the committee and in charge of galas.

Yup. This is the reality of grass roots swimming in the UK. I’ve done 6 sessions of judging in a weekend so 16 hrs on my feet (with a 3 hr drive up and the same back home again) to ensure that the club’s swimmers get to swim at the meet. And so many parents sat around doing nothing because they’d rather drop and run and spend the weekend shopping instead.

AmI we do all that too.
I totally understand why you don't want to push her if she's not interested but I would say it's not as bad as you think if she ever does want to take it up.

Oh yes yaba. Last year ds wanted to do a level 2 meet. His first. AOnD meet which meant he was one of youngest in age and literally had 50m fly time.
I actually refused this one!
However I did drive 3.5 hours there and back in a day for a National disability meet (run by a charity) not so long ago. And he's not even classified yet so couldn't actually place or medal 🙈

That was a 362 mile round trip!

It does take a reasonable amount of commitment but it is unfair to totally shut down and refuse because you like things the way they are now. Things change, people change. At least give her a chance to try it before dismissing it. You may also find your younger child wants to try it. Swimming, as with other sports, helps with many other skills such as resilience, discipline and team work and a huge network of friends.

One of my 12 yr olds said last week that school is where I have to go, swimming is where my friends are.

“And so many parents sat around doing nothing because they’d rather drop and run and spend the weekend shopping instead“

How do you know what parents of swimmers who don’t wish to help run the club do with their time? If the club is dependent on volunteers committing many hours, is this made clear to prospective joiners?

Loopytiles Yes it is made clear to to the parents of all new joiners that there is a commitment to volunteer, including poolside help during training or officials for meets. They quite literally sign up to that.

The club gets fined if it doesn’t supply a certain number of officials at specified levels when the kids compete at district level. This is also made clear to parents that children swimming at that level must sign up for officiating duties at meets. It takes 40 or so qualified officials to run each session at for an accredited meet at a 6 lane 25m pool without AOE.

And yes I would get seriously pissed off when I’d look up from the third session of the day on my feet to see fellow club parents who were also judges sat in the gallery yet again because they didn’t want to pull their weight.

And yes I did know they’d been shopping because they’d tell me what a nice lunch they’d had in town whilst surrounded by shopping bags. Always the same parents, usually with at least 2 kids swimming and making finals, and never offering to help at finals sessions because they wanted to get off home.

Sounds like the organiser should have a word, do a rota or whatever.

I guess a lot of these clubs are run on a shoestring.

I wouldn’t want or be able to volunteer, so we wouldn’t sign up. Luckily our DC are not especially sporty.

OP
Chances of becoming an Olympian swimmer - vvv small , and even smaller without the child’s passion to want this above all else
Life chances to have amazing life if very good at maths and with happy childhood - very large (even if she doesn’t get the scholarship)
You sound a wonderful mum; and you can be a tiger mum too by making sensible choices for your kid. You are giving her room to find out what she loves and is good at!

Sounds like the organiser should have a word, do a rota or whatever.

I was the organiser. I had a rota. They studiously ignored it. Or they would agree to judge and then just not sign in for their session (meaning I had to try and find someone to stand in at the last minute or the club got fined). They turned up hungover and stinking of booze one time and I couldn’t let them poolside.

After years of this, in the end I just didn’t enter their children in the meets.

LOL at some of these answers.

A 9 year old child who has only had the occasional 121 swim lesson thus never even competed in one gala or had any timed trials will not jump into having 5am morning sessions every day and needing £300 competition costumes! Also agree that any coach who is predicting Olympic potential from a couple 121s on said 9 year old is seriously overestimating his prognosticatory skills.

OP, it is obviously your decision to make based on other family commitments and the lifestyle you'd like to have, but saying yes to going the club is not tantamount to signing in blood that your daughter is committed for the rest of her sporting life to the club. I morning and one evening a week is hardly onerous, particularly if transport and fees are being taken care of. In return, the skills developed in competitive swimming are fantastic. Aerobic conditioning, the mentality of goal setting and achieving, and the skill of dealing with disappointment and moving forward are all fantastic.

You say you are waiting until your daughter joins the private school at 11 for her to join the school team - that is perfectly fine, but she also might not make the team because those children probably are also doing outside swim clubs in additional to school swimming. Both my DSs prep school had strong swim squads with members with national times and strong showings in IAPS. All of the strong members who were chosen to represent the school were part of outside swim clubs. Luckily, being a member of the swim clubs was easy as most training was done at their schools' pools and the time spent on school training counted for the club. I can't think of any member of the swim squad in the senior school, which is when your daughter is looking to join the private school, who did not train at the prep level. Again, this training is not necessarily equivalent to being county level at 10, but it does mean doing several sessions a week of swimming routinely and perfecting technique as well as increasing endurance.

Why not just start on a trial basis with the club and decide after a term or so if it works for your family and your daughter.

Two points to consider:

1. Intensive swimmingwill ruin her figure which she may regret later on.
2. Let’s say she does become a professional swimmer what then? Is that really what she wants to do with her life? Is that what you want for her?

In your place I would keep swimming ads hobby given that she doesn’t really care that much and focus on that scholarship so she has good career options when she gets older.

Why would it ruin her figure!? Surely one advantage is it does just the opposite, keeping you fit and developing muscle?

Obviously curious and keen to know...

And they're offering 2 x a week so that is at hobby level isnt it?

Its not that joining the club comits you to elite sport but it sounds like they're choosing to not do it at all or do it twice a week, whereas people are answering as if shes been asked to commit tons.

“1. Intensive swimmingwill ruin her figure which she may regret later on”

Please define ‘ruin’.
Please define ‘figure’.

Will it ruin her body, as in actual physical damage?

1. Intensive swimmingwill ruin her figure which she may regret later on

So she will have a strong lean body. Isn’t that great?

2. Let’s say she does become a professional swimmer what then? Is that really what she wants to do with her life? Is that what you want for her

Firstly what op wants for her dd is irrelevant. I hope you don’t impose your views of a career on your dc. They will do what they want to do and if you funnel them into something they are not interested in then an unhappy life is what you are pushing them into.

What is wrong with being a professional swimmer. No one knows what opportunities will be available after the competitive swimming finishes.
It doesn’t rule out going back into education to train in another career.

Intensive swimmingwill ruin her figure which she may regret later on”

Actually I can't believe I'm going to say this as this is a horrible comment but my sister trained extensively as a kid, was national level and she believes it gave her very broad shoulders which as a teenage girl and adult woman she is very self conscious of.

And yet I love my broad shoulders from it. I'm super proud of them and where they came from.

Can i just echo, once again, the silliness of the all or nothing stance on this thread from op and others.

It's actually a really sensible thing to do for your child to join a swimming club, as a hobby, say once a week. Friends, fitness, so many positives. To not do that because you don't want the rigourous training regime of an Olympic swimmer is absurd.

I would say to the OP YANBU. Athletics is something that a child can do and continue into adulthood, do for fun and always at whatever level that they achieve, and have a childhood alongside everyone else. The level of time commitment for swimming at a competitive level is almost greater than any other activity, and would mean sacrificing much of childhood.

Why? If she joins at club level and swims a couple of times a week. Many adults swim fo r fitness...just like many run?

I was a very good swimmer as a child, completed my gold, and bronze by the time I was 10, along with life saving. I was asked by the swim club to join as I was so strong. Went running home to ask my parents, and when they realised that some days training would not be at the local centre I could walk too but in the next town 10 minutes away they said it was too much hassle. I still have a prange of resentment almost 30 years on! (I also stopped swimming at 11, and I think this was partly the reason- it was, what’s the point🤷🏻‍♀️)

I would say to the OP YANBU. Athletics is something that a child can do and continue into adulthood, do for fun and always at whatever level that they achieve, and have a childhood alongside everyone else.

But that’s why I think swimming is so awesome. At the moment the OP is being offered 2 training sessions/week. If her DD doesn’t want to step it up more sessions a few years down the track but still swims a few times a week she has an exercise routine that she can also do in adulthood and at any level she achieves. It’s low impact yet good for CVS fitness.

The problem in supporting children in any sport is cost which can be massive. If they do well in swimming is it possible to make a a living out of it later?

I know someone who was determined that their child would be a profession rider and still supported by parent financially. This is a very hard way to earn a living. The child is now in their 20s is an OK rider but will probably never earn enough to support themselves in a sport full of talented people of both sexes, professionals who have done well through talent with some luck thrown in and children of multi millionaires who have everything on a plate.

I would imagine swimming is even more difficult to earn a living

Why do they have to earn a living from a hobby they do 2 x a week?

We dont expect most girls who do ballet, or kids who play football or those who play cricket etc to earn a living from their sport do we?

Christ. If you include as part of the decision making process whether your dc can make a living out of it, before starting a once/twice a week exercise class, we'd have a very unfit nation.

Don't let her become an adult who "could have been Olympian."

I'm a single parent, high pressure job, 2 children, no support from ex and no childcare support and my youngest is a very good swimmer. Once she was old enough to join the local club (9) I had to weigh up how to do it!

She's only allowed to swim twice a week with the club at the moment due to her age and they are two sessions that are doable-one weekend 5-7 and one mid-week 7-8:30.... you might find that there will only be one or two sessions initially. My DD has to give up another club because they were on the same date.

If I were you I'd enquire what the actual commitment would be, try it for a time limited period eg 3 months and if she's doing really well at the swimming maybe something else will have to stop ... if she's that good then go for it!!!

PS-I also now pop to the gym while she's swimming so I get a bit of time to myself too...bonus!!