As a coach in swimming for over 12 years, starting when I was 18, I have watched and experienced many different personalities and relationships among the parents and their swimmers. In college, I continued to examine such relationships in pursuit of my degree in Psychology with minors in Counseling and Child Development. This interests of mine continues today in my day to day life as I have chosen to do something with my life that rewards me in a way nothing else can. Over the years I have developed and understanding of what my role should be as coach and a role modal for the swimmers. I certainly am not perfect and do not pretend to be. I simply know what my goals are in my relationships with the swimmers and do the best I can to accomplish them. Many times, however, I find that what I feel is important in the development of a child swimmer is different from what I observe among parents and their children. As your coach, I feel that it is important for me to help educate and to share what my experiences and opinions are when situations occur that may not be positive experiences in the development of a child. When this happens, a typical response from a parent is: "You are not a parent, so what do you know about raising children." I agree, but since when is knowing what it is like to be a parent, a validation for expertise on parenting.

Specifically, I would like to address the behaviors that I have watched and experienced of what people typically call the "pressure parent." As a said above, I have coached for a long time and I do know what effect these behaviors have on swimmers and on swimming. Through my own experiences and from the research and education that I continue to explore, I have come up with these conclusions.

1. A pressure parent is not necessarily a bad parent, they just get too involved. There are terms like "living through your children" or "getting way too excited". This is not a bad thing. Pressure is not inherently a bad thing, it just needs to be applied sparingly. Each child learns how to deal with pressure in his own way, however, he cannot learn to take a step back and look at the lessons objectively if the pressure is constantly applied. This is why good coaches pick and choose times to apply pressure to their swimmers with proper preparation. This is exactly why pressure should not be applied by a parent who is "too involved", they aren’t objective about the lesson, they don’t know about preparation, and they haven’t been involved in the preparation. If I apply constant pressure to my swimmers, they will "burn out" and leave the sport. But, if I can direct pressure at the right time in the right circumstance, I can help motivate a swimmer to perform at his/hers higher level. This takes careful planning. If, however, if in addition to what I planned, a parent also applies pressure, then the swimmer will not respond positively. They will be overloaded and resent not only the parent but also me. Many times after a race, instead of talking about the aspects of the performace, I end up spending the time counseling the swimmer because they have emotinally fallen apart. And often, the swimmer doesn’t want to leave because of the fear of having to face the parent. A swimmer should never have reason to fear anything because of a poor performace, expecially from a parent.

2. Parents who are "too" involved with their kids’ performance are interested in immediate results. These results are often at a level more difficult than a child is ready for. What does this teach the child? In my eyes it teaches a child to set goals that are too high for him to achieve, or goals that need time, growth, development and patience to achieve. In other words, it teaches the children to set themselves up with unrealistic expectations. This will eventually make the sport unenjoyable because the rewards just aren’t coming fast enough.

3. There isn’t a child in the world who doesn’t, at some point, want to please his parents. This power that parents have can be beneficial if used properly. However, this power is often used to satisfy the parent’s needs rather than to teach and develop the child. For example, the parent tells the swimmer what to do before he goes to swim. This puts the child in a conflict, especially when the coach tells the swimmer something else to work on in this race, and reminds them of what they have been working on in practice. Therefore the child is not focused on the race, and more often than not, chooses to try what the parent says to do. As a result, the child is unsuccessful because the parent’s goal is not the same as the coaches. As coaches, it is our responsibility to develop swimmers to be successful. It is the parents responsibility to encourage the swimmer to follow their coaches plan and to help them to do so. A parent who produces their own plan is creating a conflict in the coach and swimmer relationship.

Below I have outlined and explained, from a coaches point of view, some behaviors that are identified with those consitent with that of a "pressure parent." All of them are not required to apply pressure, nor is any one of them individually putting pressure on swimmers. The pressure resulting from behaviors depends on how the behavios are perceived by the swimmer or others involved.

1. When I cheer for my swimmer I order him/her to go faster. We have all seen the movies in which parents rant and rave in the stands, trying to exhort better performance from their child. I’m not talking about your positive encouragement’s such as "Go! Go! You can do it." I mean things like, "Faster! Faster! You need to push harder, your not going fast enough." At swim meets, too often, the parent is right on deck, pacing, gesturing, yelling, and very visible. Consider how this makes the swimmer feel. The intend of competition is do the best one can. This should be assumed already by the mere fact that the child is participating in the meet. By ranting at your child, your are displaying the belief that you are not satisfied with your child’s best effort. If a child is participating in a competition, and needs to be told by the parent to swim faster, then perhaps the child should not be put in competitive situations in the first place. In addition, most kids, by the time they are 12 or so, start to turn to their peers for their support. This by no way indicates, that the parents should withdraw, but kids will tell you that they prefer parents to not be so visible. It is embarrassing to them, which in turn, causes them not to enjoy their sport.

2. When I cheer for my swimmer I tell him/her to "beat" someone. This is insulting to other parents, swimmers and embarrassing to me and the team. Someone will take offense. If the parent who is doing this doesn’t hear anything about it, you can bet the swimmer or I will. The spirit of sportsmanship encourages swimmers to be friends, even though their teams compete. Swimmers who maintain a friendly competition gain from both the friendship and the competition. By adding the pressure to "beat" someone you are only instilling that success is the result of someone else’s demise or failure, and not the result of personal growth and ability. On the flip side, failure will then be associated with the inability to out perform someone else despite achieving personal growth and ability.

3. When I watch my swimmer swim I make desparaging remarks to others about how he/she just doesn’t have enough motivation. Children are very perceptive, and if a parent is truly incensed about "lack of motivation" in their child, the child will see that mom or dad doesn’t like what they are doing. This only breeds resentment against the parent. Also, it will cause the child to use external motivation to swim, and he/she will be swimming for the parent and not for themselves.

4. I don’t think my swimmer’s motivation level is high so I offer external rewards to swim better. Anyone in sports will tell you an external motivation is not as powerful as an internal one. Dependence on exterior motivation will lead to dissatisfaction over time, which can eventually lead to the child’s quitting. Ask some of our older swimmers were they put ther ribbons. Most will say that they end up in a shoe box somewhere in the closet. They have lost there value as rewards. Just as a swimmer should not be swimming for the material reward of trophies and medals, they should not be swimming for other material rewards. This is extremely difficult to teach in our society of materialistic thinking. We must all work together on this. The child should ultimately be swimming to reach a goal, learn about hard work and competition, and be rewarded with a sincere sense of accomplishment for the efforts. Motivation is an acquired skill. Swimmers must learn about it individually, and it is up to the skilled coach, working with the parent, to figure out what is the best motivating technique for each individual.

5. I don’t think my swimmer has done well unless he/she improves in time. Human beings cannot improve every time they do something. It is physically impossible. Plus, they do have good days and bad days. By the time swimmers are at the Senior level, they are training for one or two best performances a year. Swimmers must be taught that best times are a plus, a sign that training is working and that lessons of technique and racing have been improved upon, as well as how to psyche up and prepare for races. If the expectation of getting a best time at every meet is taught as a youngster, it makes the swimmers’ expectations unrealistic and impossible to achieve.

6. I often remind my swimmer of how much this is costing me to try to motivate him/her to perform.

It is your choice as the child’s parent to pay for these activities. You made the choice when you decided to have children, and that the child would participate in the sport. The child is not, and should not, be held responsible for your choices.

7. I think my swimmer should be the "best." This is an unreasonable expectation. Most people who believe this do so because this is "your child." This is not logical. Anyone, when comparing to others, can find places where one is lacking in talent, performance, physical ability, size, etc. Your child should be working and training to be the best he or she can be, and this is not dependent on comparisons with other swimmers.

8. I think my swimmer should win all the time. The definition of winning should include things like improvement, reaching goals, learning the lessons of competition, hard work, and camaraderie, or learning about their bodies, kinesthetic sense, and coordination, or even just losing some weight, gaining strength, or dealing with asthma. If a "winning" feeling and a "winning" attitude can be learned from this sport, then it is probably something that should be stressed. However, if winning is just coming in first, there are an awful lot of people in age-group swimming doomed for failure, and that is not what childhood development sport are for.

9. I coach my swimmer before and during races and tell my swimmer what was wrong after races. This maybe the coach’s all time pet peeve. A good coach will work on specific things such as a turn, start techniques, or race pacing etc. Swim meets are "tests" to see how well the lesson has been learned. An eight year old child not only has to remember these things worked on in practice, but how to do the stroke legally, and a myriad of other tasks, not to mention doing all this while extremely excited and having parents, coaches, and teammates screaming for them to go faster. Then the coach will remind them what one thing to work on during the race, but the parent has already told them what to work on. The child lives with the parent, who are they going to want to please more? The parent of course. So, is the child going to worry about the lessons learned in practice or what the coach reminded them of? No, the child is going to try, amongst all this excitement, to please the parent and do what the parent wishes. This it totally unfair to that child and destroys all the time, money and work put into learning the lessons previous to this. Also, if a child receives feedback from anyone after a race before the coach talks to the child, the coach’s information is second impression, and thereby less effective and most likely contradictory to the initial feedback the child received. Why is the coach being paid if he/she is going to be rendered ineffective by comments made at the wrong time to the swimmer. Parents need to support their children and let the coach, coach.

10. I get more excited and more disappointed about races than my swimmer does. If an adult is getting more involved than the child in the sport, then maybe the adult should remember his or her childhood when they were told things like, "you’re going to eat this and like it" or "you will play this game and you will have fun." The adult should be the balance between the ups and downs that children go through, and should be constant and consistent. The child should be able to rely on the parent response to be supportive and nurturing no matter what. If parents get too involved, it is hard not to take the races personally. If the races are taken personally, then the parent, at times , cannot be supportive and

nurturing.

11. I think my swimmers performance reflects on me personally. No child should have the burden of a parent’s self-image. The child is having a hard enough time in today’s negative world trying to formulate his or her own self-image and should not be responsible for the parent’s. Any adult who thinks the swimming performance of a nine-year old child will reflect on them positively or negatively needs to seriously rethink their adult status. Behavior is a different story because behavior is learned, mostly from the home. But swimming performance in no way reflects on how good a parent you are, it reflects on the swimmer and his/her abilities, practice habits, and level of confidence.

Please remember, I am not advocating that as parents, you should not be involved with your own children, just that children are given room to learn the lessons of the program. Age Group swimming should not be a win/lose sport. The sport has a lot more to offer than that, in the way that lessons are learned. I don’t for a moment believe that pressure parents are out to hurt their children; they may just get carried away with the situation. Whether it is at practice or swim meets, the issues I have discussed should be taken into account. If you happen to find yourself getting carried away, try reviewing the The Ten Commandments for Parents of Athletic Children attached.

1. Make sure you child knows that win-or-lose, you love him/her, appreciate their efforts, and are not disappointed in them.

2. Try your best to be completely honest about your child’s athletic ability, his/hers competitive attitude, their sportsmanship, and their actual skill level.

3. Be helpful, but don’t coach him/her on the way to, during, or after practice on so on. It’s tough enough no to, but it’s tough for the child to be inundated with advice, pep talks and often critical instruction.

4. Teach them to enjoy the thrill of competition, to be "out there trying," to be working to improve his/her swimming skills and attitudes. Help to develop the feel for competing, for trying hard, for having fun.

5. Try not to re-live your athletic life through your child in a way that creates pressure. You yourself lost as well as won. You were frightened, you backed off at times, you were not always heroic. Don’t pressure your child because of your pride. If he/she is comfortable with you, win-or-lose, then he/she is on their way to maximum achievement and enjoyment.

6. Don’t compete with the coach. If the coach becomes an authority figure, it will run from enchantment to disenchantment with your athlete.

7. Don’t compare the skill, courage, or attitudes of your child with other members of the team.

8. Get to know your coach so that you can reassured that his/her philosophy, attitudes, ethics, and knowledge are such that you are happy to have your child under his/her leadership.

9. Always remember that children tend to exaggerate, both when praised and when criticized. Temper your reaction and investigate before over-reacting.

10. Make a point of understanding courage, and the fact that it is relative. Some of us can climb mountains, and are afraid to fight. Some of us will fight, but turn to jelly if a bee approaches. Explain that courage is not the absence of fear, but a means of doing something in spite of fear of discomfort.