After a couple years of swim lessons and seasonal swimming, my kids drifted into swimming full-time, year round. Looking back, I wondered why both my kids chose this sport? Why did we support them with this huge commitment of early mornings, plus daily evening practices and many weekends out of town? In the end, it was truly their love of the sport that pulled us down this lane.
Here are several reasons why we were attracted to the pool at the beginning of our aquatic adventure:
One
Safety.
We live in an area where there are pools in most backyards. We enrolled our kids in the city’s “parent and me” swim program when they were six-months old. As they continued with swim lessons, we observed our local club practicing. Our son was filled with pride when his swim instructor told him he should try out for the team.
Two
“Swimmers have the highest GPA of any sport.”
When I saw that on a flyer for our local club, I found it intriguing. Would my kids do better at school just because I signed them up for swimming? We soon discovered that swimming taught a lot of skills which helped with school, such as time management, hard work and goal setting.
Three
The families.
I saw a group of dedicated parents who worked together for a common goal. People who gave unselfishly of themselves for the success of our team. The children were respectful and hard working. I was thrilled to have my kids hang out with this group of kids on a daily basis.
Four
The coaches.
Unlike other sports, like tee ball and soccer, where volunteer parents coach, the swim coaches were professional. They had credentials, background checks, college degrees and swim backgrounds. They were passionate about their sport. They treated the team as though it was more than a team or a job. It was their family.
Five
Health.
With a “Secret Garden child,” as a coach called my son who has asthma, swimming proved to be a valuable part of increasing strength and stamina. His doctor was impressed with how much his breathing capacity increased—more than doubled—because of his sport. The overall fitness and lifelong health benefits that swimming has given my kids, and now myself as a masters swimmer, is immeasurable.
Six
They love it.
I’m thankful my kids loved swimming and our lives streamlined around the pool. They took to the sport for different reasons and I’m proud they both swim today. It’s a decision that we’ll always be proud and pleased about — that we became a swim family.
What other reasons do you have to become a swim family?
Elizabeth Wickham volunteered for 14 years on her kids’ club team as board member, fundraiser, newsletter editor and “Mrs. meet manager.” She’s a writer with a bachelor of arts degree in editorial journalism from the University of Washington with a long career in public relations, marketing and advertising. Her stories have appeared in newspapers and magazines including the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Parenting and Ladybug. You can read more parenting tips on her blog.
As a swimmer in high school, our GPAs are trash
My four children were all on a year-found swim team–the youngest one from age four until high school graduation. When the elementary school would send home notices that some children at school had lice, it was never a concern for our family. The chlorine in the pool meant we never had that problem.
I taught swimming lessons for 15 yrs at my home. It was the most rewarding things I have done in my life. I grew up in Hawaii and lived a block from the beach and swim all the time. My parents made sure we had lessons and could swim good…..the beach was my play ground and my friends and I would swim out to a island call flate Island everyday …….so I grew up knowing how important it was to learn to swim…One thing that surprised me was how many parents don’t make that a important thing for their kids to learn. A lot of that I found came from their own fears of water. Some would come every summer… Read more »
I’m just happy that both my kids picked the same sport!
My son did baseball, basketball and a little swimming lessons every summer, then he soccer for years, and flag football. On top
Of that he did tae kwon do full time. But I will never forget the day he told me he will stick with swimming and my daughter picked swim over dance which she did for 5 years!
Everything in this article is so true for my kids and I am so thankful we were in this sport and I’m not a dance mom or a soccer mom ?.