How to help my sporty DD make the best choices

[ElfinsMum]

My DD is - with no genetic help from me - good or very good at most sports she has tried. To begin with, this was fun for her and for us. However, now that she is near the top of primary, all the sports are getting more serious and I am finding it harder to know what we should be encouraging her to do with her time and energy.

DH and I agree that she should do things that she enjoys, is good at and are good for her mental health.

DD is driven, competitive, highly coachable and suffers from anxiety. She is highly committed to all her sports but seems to actually enjoy team sports much more than individual sports. At the moment she plays netball, cricket and competitive swimming.

We didn't choose the swimming. She was talent spotted and we kind of went along with it. A year in she is training 7 hours per week over 4 sessions. She is one of the strongest in her age group in training and she is often complimented on her technique. However, she doesn't seem to be able to produce fast times when racing, I guess because of a combination of her being small and skinny for her age, her performance anxiety and because she trains close to max and doesn't have an extra gear for racing.

We are now arguing as a family about what to do:

DD says she likes swimming training this regularly and doesn't care about doing any better in racing.

DH says she should do whatever she wants and I should wind my neck in.

But I don't think it is worth spending 7.5 hours per week (more if she moves to a higher squad) on swimming if she isn't going to compete. Tbh, I am only really prepared for her to spend that much time on any one sport if she is like county level at it. Because she would never get that childhood time back and it is starting to eat into homework time. I think it is genuinely bonkers for her to spend so much time on swimming when she is actually potentially better at netball, cricket or tennis (which she used to do)... just because the swim club got their teeth into her and it happens to be such a time hungry sport at a young age.

What do other parents of sporty kids do? How do you feel about the time pressures your kids are under? How much do you try and steer their choices? How much weight do you place on current performance or should we just be picking one or two sports now and digging in for the long haul?

Having written all that down, I can't believe I did it at all! The whole family hates gymnastics by the end of it. We all did it. Parents became coaches and siblings were in rec. all because I was a bit good but not that good really. Madness.

I would keep an eye on the anxiety. Learning how to manage that will stand her in really good stead in whatever she does in life.

@lljkk Yes, I would like my daughter to realise her potential with the strengths and limitations that she has. I think that's fairly normal for parents, no?

Btw, just because this is the way the conversation has tended towards, she isn't like elite elite level. Just a good young club swimmer (good in training anyway).

This is a really interesting thread, especially about times of sessions.. My DC (9) has recently joined a swim squad and the next squad up by age has classes 8-9pm on weeknights which is currently past bedtime! So we are not sure whether it will be sensible.

Swimmers have to take the water when they can get it, so at most clubs it's early mornings and late nights round public swim.

@ElfinsMum

Btw, just because this is the way the conversation has tended towards, she isn't like elite elite level. Just a good young club swimmer (good in training anyway).

How old op?

I wouldnt be happy using all my apare time ferrying kids around to a sport unless they were Olympic standard. So depends on how much time the parents are willing to sacrifice and how keen the child is. I dont think its a one answer suits all scenario.

She's 10 @oftenithinkaboutit

@viviennemary I have been really surprised at how into it the vast majority of the swimming parents are. Most don't seem to share my reservations, e.g. plenty of nine and ten year olds do attend the 5.30am training sessions, some even train at 5.30 and then again at 4.30pm on the same day!

Year 5 or 6?

I’d say you can keep up Numerous sports for years before having to commit to one seriously.
I was a national swimmer, but also did county netball, running and tennis up to 15 (then had to drop some of them for swimming.)

I was very busy but I still ADORE sport.
I also suffer with anxiety but sport helped. It balanced me out and made me confident too.
I would be an anxious mess without sport 😂 in fact if I go 3-4 days without a run, I feel a lot more stressed now.

Yr 5 but we're in Aus so school years and age cut offs are different.

I wouldnt be happy using all my apare time ferrying kids around to a sport unless they were Olympic standard.

That's self-fulfilling then, as if you don't facilitate them before they are at a high standard, they never will be.

For me it's not about becoming an Olympian though, sport is just a vehicle to develop life skills and resilience.

When will she start secondary?

Hahahaha, this is the exact argument my daughter uses @Campfirewood... except she isn't actually particularly keen on running unless there is a ball involved.

If you don't mind me asking, did you ever feel that your reliance on sport to keep on top of anxiety ever tipped over into like an obsessive compulsive thing or maybe an eating disorder? Because my daughter does have a bit of form for controlling her anxiety with like counting rules and stuff (nothing too serious to date thank goodness) and I do worry that swimming, with all those reps, and laps and times, would lend itself to that kind of obsessive compulsive, rigid thinking -of an anorexic-.

2023

Have you chatted to her coach about racing?

Most will say they work On technique and the speed and racing knowledge comes later.

But you are absolutely right about the hours!

My ds is para swimmer swimmer competing at national level and he trains 8 times a week over 6 days and that involves 4am alarms for 5am training

Sorry forgot to add the other bits!

Ds is also very anxious. Swimmjng has helped that.

He didn't get into competitive swimming until he was 11 - so quite late. He just had lessons up until then.

He didn't find the competitive drive until he was 14/15 and went through puberty and the emotional changes and maturity that comes with that.

I would also have a healthy mistrust of someone who’s hobby is getting up before 5am to coach kids (voluntarily?) - they will themselves have such an obsessive mindset with no concept of balance, and I wouldn’t want that to be seen as normal or healthy by my DC

I'm someone who is a morning person, I'm normally awake from about 4 am, 6am is a lie in.

Maybe I need to volunteer with a swim club.

Forgive my ignorance but do choices need to be made just yet? She is only 10, can she carry on as she is for a time?

@sashh She can carry on as she is, indeed that's exactly what she wants to do.

But look at the number of ex swimmers (and other sports that require massive time commitments from an early age) on the thread who regret that they gave so much of their childhood to one thing. I'm sure all of them were happy with their choices at 10.

If she continues swimming 7-9 hours per week for the next two years, she will never be able to get that time back or invest it in other activities she might have enjoyed more and/or become better at.

Swimming is very good for anxiety. I have anxiety and take part in a number of sports and find swimming the most helpful. I think it is due to the fact that it does not produce so much adrenaline as, say, running.

You're more confident than I ever could be about my own DC, that you know best about your DC, ElfinMom. Mine surprise me all the time and I was totally wrong about in my guesses about what was best for them.

@itsgettingweird she has just gone up into the squad where they start to work on speed. But I think the issue is that she trains a lot closer to max than the others. They seem to have another "racing" gear that she doesn't, even before they have been trained for speed per se. She is also physically the shortest and skinniest girl in her squad, and swimming outside year round also the coldest.

That's very interesting @dizzydizzydizzy My daughter is definitely less anxious when she does swim training. That's one of the main reasons she wants to continue.

Anyway you’d consider moving to a very sporty private now? She’d be amongst Uber sporty Kids and she may well just become average at swimming but fly at another sport

@ElfinsMum IHRTFT but think long and hard about what you ALL expect and hope for in terms of outcomes. I am fortunate enough to have represented my country in a sport, and while I am extremely proud of some of my achievements I paid a heavy price, physically, mentally, in relationships and career both at the time and since.

The people I know who get the most enjoyment out of the sport I loved are the ones who kept it as a hobby.