We never stick around very long during the summer so my kids have never participated in swim team – which is the summer’s most popular activity around here. Of course, they’ve never complained about it because although it’s the most popular activity, I don’t think many kids are begging to participate. Instead, it is the parents pushing them into swim team in order to not be entirely lazy the whole summer and to make them better swimmers.
My kid’s have dodged that bullet the entire 8 years we’ve lived here, until now – when they formed a spring swim team. I signed up the three oldest kids and only Hallie was excited about it. Unfortunately for her, she found out that she made the basketball team just two days after signing her up which meant she had to drop out.
Bennett warmed up to the idea knowing he would be with all his friends. Hunter on the other hand was less than excited – especially after the first practice and he came home to report that “All you do is swim back and forth the whole practice. It’s boring.” We reminded him, we weren’t doing it for fun, we were doing it to build stronger swimmers.
They had one meet at the end of their season and the kids placed in all the strokes and they both took first in two strokes. Hunter had decided he didn’t want to do the backstroke in the meet because he didn’t like it and he hated not knowing when he was going to reach the wall. Minutes before the race, I convinced him to compete in the stroke…and he took first. Little life lesson. 🙂
After the meet, I could sense a shift in mentality towards swim team. In all their practices, there was never a competitive aspect. They just kept swimming. The swim meet was different – throw in a competitive race and both my boys were willing participants!
And more importantly, we accomplished our goal – they are strong swimmers!
