Adapted from an article written By Michael Brooks, Head Coach, York YMCA Swimming
NOTA BENE
WE all want what is best for the child. That is sometimes hard for coaches to understand. That is also sometimes hard for parents to understand. Much of the historical tension between coaches and parents can be avoided if we agree on two golden rules: first, let’s cut each other some slack and not jump on and over-react to the first unsubstantiated third-hand rumor that comes down the pike. And second, let’s communicate, often, and not just when we may have a problem.
PROBLEMS, POTENTIAL AND KINETIC
UNEQUAL Justice for all? Sometimes parents ask, “Why don’t you treat the kids equally, with one standard for all?” For the same reason that most parents don’t treat their own children exactly the same: because kids have different capabilities, personalities, and motivations, and what works for one child doesn’t work for all. Second, because with talent comes responsibility. When a very fast swimmer, whom the others look up to and follow, messes around in practice, he drags the whole group down with him. This will not be tolerated. Higher expectations accompanying talent should be taken as a compliment.
THE wisdom of Solomon. Coaches make many decisions. You won’t agree with them all. For instance, relays. As a general rule, every parent thinks his child should be on the “A” relay. But only four swimmers can be on the relay team. The coaches will choose the four kids whom they think will do the best job today. That is not always the four with the top four “best times.” Sometimes it includes a swimmer who has been very impressive in practices, or someone who is on fire at this meet, or someone who hasn’t swum the event in a meet in a while and so hasn’t officially made a fast time but who has let the coaches know by practice performance and otherwise that he deserves to be in the relay. Trust the coaches to act in what they consider the best interests of the team as a whole, and understand that this sometimes conflicts with what you see as the best interests of your child at this moment.
MEDDLING isn’t coaching. A lot of coaches, especially younger ones, will “overcoach” as a rule, especially at meets. “Overcoaches” are in the kids’ faces all the time, giving them twenty thousand instructions before they race, timing them incessantly during the warm-ups of a championship meet, controlling every little thing. Many parents are impressed by this show of active coaching. However, overcoaching is destructive, at practice and at meets. At practice, swimmers need instruction -- that is agreed. But they also need to be allowed to try things, to find out what works and what doesn’t, to watch other swimmers, with perhaps a few leading questions from the coach. You don’t teach an infant how to walk; he watches you, he tries it, he falls, he falls again and again, and in no time he is charging around the house making mischief.
And when you get to a meet, the general rule should be, the less said the better. In a stressful environment, the more information you try to force into a kid’s head at the last minute, the more likely you are to jam his circuits entirely (similar to “cramming” for an exam in school). He will head to the blocks not knowing which way is up. If a coach has been doing the job in practice, the swimmer will know how to swim his race before he gets to the meet. A couple of cues or reminders, and only a couple, and the swimmer can hop on the blocks without his mind cluttered by overcoaching.
TALK to the coach. Communicate your concerns about the program or your child’s progress within it with the coach, not with your child. Never complain about a coach to a child. The last thing a ten year-old needs is to be caught in the middle between two adult authority figures. Further, when you have a problem or concern, please do not head to other parents to complain, head to the coach to discuss. There is nothing guaranteed to destroy a program faster, and to send good (even great) coaches running for the door quicker, than a group of parents sitting together every day in the stands comparing notes about the things they don’t like.
SEMPER fidelis. Don’t criticize the team to outsiders, don’t criticize the coach to outsiders, don’t criticize other parents to outsiders, don’t criticize your own swimmers to outsiders, don’t criticize others’ swimmers to outsiders. If you can’t find anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.
LEAVE this campsite cleaner than you found it. Before you complain about any component of the program, ask yourself: what am I doing, positively and actively, to help the team function better?
DON’T try to be a swimming expert. With the internet rage, the amount of really bad information available at the click of a mouse is overwhelming. And not being a coach, not being immersed in the sport twenty-four hours a day, not having much historical perspective on technique and training, and generally not knowing where the website you just stumbled onto fits in the jigsaw puzzle of the sport, you are in no position to judge what you find critically.
THERE are no “age group parents” and “senior parents.” There are only swimming parents. Once a portion of the team’s parents begins to think of itself as having a different interest from that of the group as a whole, the team has begun to rip itself apart. The rose bud is not distinct from the rose in full flowering; they are the same things at different stages of development, with identical interests.
KEEP me in the loop. It happens quite frequently that I cannot understand why a swimmer is responding to the training as he is. It seems to make no sense, if we assume that the only variables are the ones that I am in control of in training. Why is he so tired? Why is he so inconsistent? It is easy to forget that everything happening in the swimmer’s life during the twenty-one hours a day when he is away from the pool affects his swimming as much or more than the three hours of training when I am ostensibly in charge. Let me know if there are problems at home or at school that will affect your swimmer’s training and racing performance. You don’t need to give me all the details, but in order to coach your swimmer individually; I have to know what is happening individually.
Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 6
