When Sally Swims Poorly…
How Mom and Dad Might Talk To
Their Child at a Swim Meet
Swim Meet conversation between
parent and athlete can be either highly productive, or highly counter-productive. Your goal as a parent should be to contribute
to a positive swim meet experience for your child. This is the same goal as shared by the coach
and the athlete. It is important that
all three sides of the triangle be working together on meet days, as well as
the rest of the swim year.
As I travel the country talking to
parents, and observing swim meets and the effects of individual athletes, a few
things stand out for comment. The
inter-relationship of athlete, coach and parent on the days of swim meets is
one of the most important. To discuss
this adequately, it is necessary to define the role of each person.
The athlete attends the meet to
attempt to gain, or affirm some progress that has been made in their
development. This may take the form of a
personal best time, or holding a stroke technique together for an entire race, or
executing accurately a particular strategy for "splitting" the race,
or any of a multitude of other possibilities and combinations. The role of the athlete is the active
one. It is up to them to perform, and
the meet day is a selected time to perform the experiment.
The role of the coach on meet day
needs to be thoroughly understood. It is dependent upon how the coach has
presented themselves in the athlete's swimming career. Primarily, for most coaches, they are the
technical resource that a swimmer depends upon to help them improve. They also serve as a role model, and to a
greater or lesser extent, as a motivator, friend, and co-author of the strategy
or experiment being performed on that day.
The parent is the racing
"support crew". The parent
makes sure they have all their human needs attended to, and continues their
parental function of supervising personal development. Their love, attention, and caring are key
ingredients in creating a successful experience on race day.
Athlete, technical support, and
human support. That's all it takes.
Now, back to the question of meet
conversation. Lots of talk goes on at a meet, and coming and going around the
meet. Let's focus on the conversations that go on around a particular swim, and
see what can be learned from that item.
Sally Smith is eleven years old, and
she is about to swim the 100 yard freestyle. Sally is a pretty good little
swimmer, and has a best time of 1:01.3.
She'd like to go a personal best time in this event at the Oskosh By Gosh
Meet, and she and her coach, Rita Bobeeta, have been talking all week about how
Sally has to concentrate on keeping her stroke long and strong during the last
25 yards of her race.
Now, the race has been seeded in the
bullpen (interesting name, huh?) and the swimmers have been released until they
swim. Sally knows she is supposed to
stop and talk to Rita before she swims.
She goes over to see her.
"Hey Kiddo, ready for the big
swim?"
"Rita, I got it all under
control, and I'm ready to go fast."
"What do you need to remember
on this swim?"
"To keep my stroke long on the
last twenty-five."
"Not just long, but...."
"long and Strong!"
"Right! Have a real good swim now. Go get it!"
Sally blasts off, and gets out in
front immediately. Mom and Dad cheer
like crazy. Sally turns for home,
and......
(Now, at this point let's consider
two endings. We will take a look at each
one.)
Sally turns for home and......
shortens her stroke bit by bit as she gets more and more tired, and struggles
to the wall, with a time of 1:01.5.
Sally is disappointed, and she goes
back to Rita choking back tears, and stands there, waiting for Rita to speak.
"Well, not quite what we
wanted. How did it feel?"
"It felt awful! I was terrible!
I couldn't do anything!"
"From here, it looked like you
were only pushing through to your waist, and towards the end of the race maybe
not even that far. Where should your
hand finish?"
"At my suitline."
"And what did your arms really
feel like?"
"I got all hot and my arms were
burning at the end of the race."
"Do you know why that is? I think you haven't had enough good fast pace
work yet. Next month, we'll work on
that, and by the Billibong Open, you'll be much better!"
Sally leaves Rita happy and feeling
much less like the Ugly Duckling. Now, she heads to see Mom and Dad.
Most parents I talk to, think that
this is a tough time to deal with their children. It isn't!
(The tough one is next.) All Mom
and Dad have to do in this case, is two simple things:
First, deal with human things.
"Are you warm enough,
honey?"
"Put on your warmups, and your
towel"
"Do you need something to
drink?"
Then, if all is well, STOP. Do not get into the race unless the child
wants to. That is not your role. You are
there to support.
But let’s say that Sally comes back
and says....
"I Stunk!"
Mom and Dad say, "Stunk? Stunk means you smelled badly. All that chlorine is kind of nasty, but I
wouldn't say you stunk. What do you
really mean?"
After Sally has a chance to get rid
of her emotional response, you should ask, "What did Coach Bobeeta
say?"
Now is a good time to explore
this. What you are trying to do, as a
parent, is duplicate the same mind-set the coach is trying to re-instill. Analyze what went wrong with the experiment. You don't have the technical expertise to
offer the answers that Coach Rita does, but by asking questions that require a
technical response, you shift Sally out of the emotional context. This is nothing more than an experiment that
did not turn out the way you wanted it to.
This is perfect swim
parenting. You reinforce the message
that the coach is sending.
If you will simply take care of the human needs, and shift the emotional disappointment to an analytical response, all will be well in Sally's world.