“A Chance to Be A Hero Everyday”

By John Leonard

“Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.”

“Everything we do for our children that they can do for themselves, makes them weaker.” (Lynn Offerdahl, great swimming parent in Fort Lauderdale, FL.)

One of the really sad trends in American society is parental “concern” that removes adventure and opportunity for growth from American children’s lives. Yes, the world is a different place from the one I grew up in, and many other people, as well. In that world, we were not constantly supervised by parents, and most often, were pretty much totally unsupervised by adults for much of the summer and after school hours as well.

We got cuts and bruises, we did “dangerous things” and looked out for one another. One of us usually had a reasonable degree of sense, and rarely did anyone get seriously injured, but we constantly did “daring” things that helped us understand the limits to our ability (and we regularly exceeded what we thought was possible.)

Contrast that with the average child’s life today.

In those days, we prepared every day for our future independent lives. And then, we rarely if ever came home after high school, and certainly never needed our parents to “support us” later in life. (Ok, I know, we can all point to exceptions to that….)

Today, not so much.

One of the very best parts of swim practice is that EVERYDAY, you get to test your “Hero” capabilities. In every program in the USA, the challenge can be that you will “do something you have never done before” and “be a hero” in that growth. Challenge is the essence of swim practice and the child learns to fail, pick themselves up, and try, try, try again until they succeed. Whether it’s an eight year old learning to dive off the starting block, or a 17 year old senior trying to complete that set of 100’s on 1:05, the opportunities for “hero development” are there. And if coaches don’t offer that, athletes don’t accept the challenge and parents don’t support and applaud that, we’re not showing much confidence in our young people.

The days of 14 year old’s fighting off the Indians from Conestoga wagons crossing the great plains are gone. So are the 50’s when many of us took off at dawn and might not return home until after dark, with many “adventures” to grow from every day, but we can still go to practice, be completely responsible for our own success, and challenge ourselves to reach “hero status” every day.

And if you don’t practice and rehearse, you might really be clueless when you face that real-world challenge that all young people and adults do face, from time to time.

Heroes in practice prepare to be heroes in life.

All the Best, JL

John Leonard is the Director of the American Swimming Coaches Association.   He has been on the deck coaching since the 70’s and has worked with developmental through Olympic swimmers.  He has a vast consulting background in working with parents, athletes, coaches, officials, and administrators for over 40 years.  He also runs the educational programs of ASCA that reach thousands of coaches all over the world.

“Put Your Hands Down”

By Guy Edson

Inevitably, when I am explaining then next swim set to age group swimmers the hands start going up before I have finished giving the instruction!  I think to myself, “What is this?  I haven’t even given you the whole story yet?”

Since I am an old guy, I can tell you I never saw that happened 30 years ago.  This is a phenomenon I have noticed that is becoming progressively more common over the last 15 years.  .

Most people say that kids are different today.  If you use your favorite internet search engine and look for “are children different today” you’re going to find a ton of opinions and a tiny bit of authoritative research.  Most authoritative articles say that today’s kids actually DO think differently and that they learn differently than their parents… and very differently from people of my generation.

You might find articles that discuss “inductive discovery versus deductive discovery” and “inductive teaching versus deductive teaching.”  One article says that children’s brains are physically different including one area of the brain that is more developed these days and enhances inductive discovery – the ability to figure things out through interactive exchange.  Inductive teaching would allow and encourage hands to go up.  Deductive teaching, sometimes referred to as “old school” teaching, would discourage interaction and be more of the “be quiet and listen” type of teaching.

I started feeling guilty for being so “old school” and I had a fleeting thought that I should allow the hands to go up and accommodate the questions.  (But then I had this halting thought that it would now take me 5 minutes to explain a set and if I have 6 sets a day then that is… 30 minutes of explaining?)

Wait a minute!  This is apples and oranges.  Explaining a set is not “learning” a new skill or a new concept.  It is a set of INSTRUCTIONS for something they already know how to do.  I am talking about the basic ability to listen to instructions and “get it.”  One “gets it” by listening to the whole instruction within the context of the situation and then applying their brain.  And even when one doesn’t hear every detail one is left to figure it out.  And so I say, “hands down, listen, and think.”

Is this harsh?  Is it bad coaching technique?  I’d rather think it’s presenting the swimmers an opportunity to gain the life skill of learning to pay attention to instructions and then carrying them out.