Does swimming club training take over all other sports participation?

[Ojoy1986]

My son is a sporty 9yo. He has completed the everyone active swimming stages and has been encouraged to join a swimming club. He is keen as he enjoys swimming and so I signed him up. At the first session the coach wants to move him up a couple of stages and the training schedule would clash with football training and tire him out before football matches. There is one session that doesn’t clash with other sports clubs but the coach kind of alluded to the fact he would need to be at all the training sessions. My question is can you do some swimming and have a few swim galas whilst also maintaining a team sport? I’m not sure if we should pay the £50pm if we are only going to be attending one session. Thanks for reading.

Swimming clubs will totally take over not only the child’s life, but that of the family. The training sessions will get longer and more frequent. There will be competitions. The parent(s) have to transport the child to/from training and competitions. The parents pay for club uniform, entering competitions etc.
the child won’t have time for other sports.

It very much depends on the club and the level he wants to compete at. My DS has recently left swimming but at 9 he was training two hours in the evening 5 days a week. Swim meets were about one a month and took up all day Saturday and Sunday and sometimes Friday evening as well. By the time he left in his mid teens he was training 16 hours a week including before and after school sessions on the same day. The attendance expectation was 100% with only illness or injury being accepted as a reason to miss a session.

But not all clubs are like that, there is another club locally whose only requirement is 1 session a week and there you only pay for the sessions you attend.

£50 per month is quite reasonable but as he moves up the squads this will probably increase as the training requirements increase. Not to mention gala fees which is usually about £50 to £60 in entry fees then around £10 for you to spectate and some maybe away so require accomodations etc.

Anyway to answer your question yes you can do a bit of swim training and a few galas at some clubs but at other clubs they expect full commitment and there really isn't time for any other sports.

Yeah it can do but it does depend a bit on the ethos of the club you’re at.

I think the short answer is Yes.

You can’t be in a swim club part time, it takes dedication from parents as well as children. To be a great swimmer you need to be at least 3 times a week in the pool minimum

You need to work out the rules of the club and how strict they are. My dd’s club gets more intense as they move through the stages.

He's getting to the age where he might need to chose between sports as for all sports the expectations and commitment rise as they go up through levels.