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?

Just a thought, but thinking re anxiety lessening after swimming, she may also be benefiting from the sensory feelings of swimming pools (that weightless compression sort of sensation, if you know what I mean?)

In which case she might benefit from things like compression clothing and weighted blankets too. Not to replace exercise but to support the anxiety?

That's interesting @Vanishun. Never thought of it like that. Have you ever tried a weighed blanket for anxiety?

Coaches don't tend to voluntarily get up at 4am to coach!

They ar very highly qualified, paid quite well and their job will always before early and late because they operate outside the hours of education!

[quote ElfinsMum]@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.[/quote]
The kids I e known who train like this are usually middle and long distance swimmers.

There is a place for them if they choose to pursue it!

@dizzydizzydizzy

That's interesting *@Vanishun*. Never thought of it like that. Have you ever tried a weighed blanket for anxiety?

Yes I use both tight clothing (under my normal clothes) and weighted blankets, they're a great help to me.

I remember the physical "compression" sensation of swimming used to stick with me for ages afterwards.

Might not be the same for others but just thought I'd mention.

If she has a tendency to anxiety, then I suspect that the competitive swimming might not be the best thing for her mental health in the long run. The pressure ramps up a lot as they get older. She might be better sticking with the team sports where there is not so much pressure on the individual.

I think the most important thing here is that it is child led with the adults there to facilitate and support where possible. If she wants to carry on swimming as often and at this level then I would tend to let her take the lead, whilst also keeping the other sports going too if possible.

My DD (10) does 9 hours of gymnastics a week, has been squad level since aged 5. She didn't show any interest in other sports despite being offered them constantly until last year when she asked to play football. Currently, she does gymnastics 3 days a week, football 3 days a week, cross county twice a week and plays hockey after school once a week.

She is a busy girl, but she has chosen these and it makes her happy. I like that she has some individual sports as well as team sports and as long as she is keen, and as long as I can manage to, I will facilitate her. She shows a high level of natural ability and can excel in any of these sports. If she was to come to me and tell me she isn't enjoying it any more then that's perfectly fine but as long as she's happy then so am I.

@itsgettingwierd That's interesting and I think you are the second person to say it on the thread. We have a big open water program here so she could definitely go down that path in the future.

[quote ElfinsMum]@itsgettingwierd That's interesting and I think you are the second person to say it on the thread. We have a big open water program here so she could definitely go down that path in the future.[/quote]
It doesn't even need to be open water. You can also do 800/1500 in the pool if inside swimming in her thing!

Unless she’s an only child

Decisions regarding involvement in extra curricular sport must be taken with the impact on other children in mind

@Oftenithinkaboutit No she's not an only, she's one of three and the youngest is not yet 2. Both the other kids are definitely impacted. And the cost is doubly bad too because the middle one now does heaps of sports partly because he enjoys them and partly because it is only fair.

Yeah , I remember the days when younger ones had to tag along all activities for the older ones...
But I have let them do whatever sports they wanted as long as I could fit it in. Youngest still does sport 6 out of 7 days, has great friendships with fellow swimmers ( none of them are super serious swimmers,) and is never going to be an Olympian.