Dear Sher,
I recognize that you are well meaning and that you want to make sure you’re doing all you can to help your daughter be as good as she can be in our sport. This is why I have taken my time and gave you subtle hints as to how you can actually best help Carol in her long term development.
However, today in my response I’ll be more direct as I do not seem to be getting across to you that you are going overboard with your well-meaning zealous efforts to help Carol.
To start, I would like to remind you that in my last email to all the parents of the group, I explicitly wrote that at this point in their development, ALL THEIR RACES ARE IMPORTANT.
The children are learning to perform and all opportunities to perform are equal.
It is inevitable that Carol will qualify for the provincial meets, but there isn’t a deadline for that.
Secondly, although you have an eye to see technical aspects of our sport that evade most untrained people, it doesn’t mean that you must be involved at that level in your daughter’s swimming. There is a lot of literature available for parents who like you have a strong desire to help their young athlete get the most of their sports (I’ve added links below for your perusal). I encourage you to read articles and books in regard to parenting young athletes. You might find that stepping back a little from Carol’s swimming will give her more room to breathe and make her own experiences.
Although I do not have a child of my own, I understand from having witnessed many parents having similar challenges that it isn’t easy to do. It has come to my attention that Carol has been getting extra training on Sundays. Maybe letting her have a day off could be a great start at giving her more space.
And finally, I cannot help but get a feeling that maybe you don’t trust the club’s program and its coaches. To give you an example, when my car needs to be fixed, I just bring it to the garage and trust the mechanic will be honest and care for my car as his own. It only makes sense since I know very little about cars. Surely, the mechanic has had to train and learn his trade to be qualified to have a shop. And that is on top of the years of experience he’s got dealing with cars that need fixing. I would be glad to offer you a list of my qualifications and experiences.
You are welcome to tell me what you see needs improvement in her technique; however you also need to realize that when I look at Carol, I see well beyond the next few years and therefore prioritize skill development in function of her long term development. As I said to you before, Carol will not achieve the best performances of her career while she’s 10 years old. And, with coaching experience you would know that it takes time for a young child to implement the skills they learn in practice into their races consistently. It’s not just a matter of the coach telling the swimmer what to do and then voila! The swimmer gets it and it’s changed forever.
Please be considerate with your email contributions of the time I spend, firstly thinking about my replies and secondly the time it takes me to write back. Often, meeting face to face after practice is much more time efficient as we can address more in less time.
With all my care,
Coach Philippe
http://changingthegameproject.com/open-letter-dad-wont-stop-yelling/
http://changingthegameproject.com/how-adults-take-the-joy-out-of-sports/
http://sportforlife.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/A-Sport-Parents-Guide.pdf
http://changingthegameproject.com/kids-play-sports/
http://changingthegameproject.com/lets-stop-early-sport-specialization-madness/
0 Comments