Working With The Coach

News For

SWIM PARENTS

Published by The American Club Swimming Association

2101 North Andrews Ave., Suite 107

Fort Lauderdale FL 33311

___________________________________________________________________

Working WITH the Coach

One of the major difficulties has to do with the working relationship between coach, parents, and Board of Directors. The ability of the coach to work with parents in a respectful and cooperative manner is often times an issue. This is especially true when parents, primarily age group parents, challenge the coaches' authority and ability to make judgments. Two other issues are the ability of the coach to educate parents as to the swimming needs of their children, and the administrative abilities of a coach to effectively delegate and lead a parent's group.

From our vantage point of "hearing it from all sides" we have developed this advice for parents.

n Be educated. Read all you can about swimming but remember, that there are usually many different ways to teach a skill, or plan a season, or set a race strategy, etc.. Your coach may use tactics you have not read about and are not familiar with but are never-the-less absolutely sound. Some very gifted coaches may use techniques that aren't well documented but may be a superior method. Your coach may be a pioneer! We don't think that all coaches should coach using the same methods and are anxious to hear from coaches having success with new found methods.

Where do you find information? Subscribe to Swimming World or Swimming Technique Magazines, ask us for a International Swimming Hall of Fame Book List, and/or join ASCA as a non-coach member and receive the ASCA Magazine, ASCA Newsletter, and the Journal of Swimming Research.

n Think before you ask. When you are concerned about a decision made by the coach it's fair to ask for an explanation but keep in mind two things. First, Ask for an explanation at the proper time. During swim practice or while the coach is on the deck during a swim meet are not good times to ask for explanations. It is better to wait for a quieter time and it is better to think through your questions before approaching the coach.

Secondly, it is reasonable for a coach to give an explanation by simply saying, "I had a feeling it would work best this way." It's called intuition, and it is one of the most important ways a coach makes a judgment call. Let's not take this away from coaches.

Situation: Relays. Who should be on the relay and what should the order be? You may think it should be the fastest four swimmers and since your daughter is the second fastest, she should go third.

However, there are so many factors that go into setting a relay line up that the guiding philosophy of the coach might simply be that he "enters the relay in the best interest of the team". There should never be a specific relay policy that will prevent your coach from using his judgment.

For example, the "fastest four" may not be the fastest four on THAT day; the order may depend on the suspected order of a rival team's relay; the coach may have an intuitive feeling that a given individual may perform faster than the "fastest four"; or the coach might feel that an individual needs the psychological boost of being on the "A" relay and in the long term, this is more beneficial for the team; etc..etc..

The point is, it is a coaches' call. He may make a judgment based on an intuitive feeling he has or other reasoning that you do not agree with or understand but it is within his area of authority to make the call and he needs the freedom to do it without undue critical challenges.

n View the larger picture. There are three pictures, actually. One is the larger picture of the swimmer's swimming career. Early success (i.e. medals, ribbons, high point trophies, and national age group rankings) is not a requirement to career success. In fact, many times those successful early in their careers drop out before they have the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Coaches are usually very patient with a swimmer's progress because they are able to see the larger picture. Try not to mistake a coaches' calm patience with non-caring.

Larger picture number two: Did you ever see the pin that says "There's more to life than swimming"? We're hopeful that all coaches and parents remember that the most important experiences gained in an individual's swimming career have nothing to do with flip turns or butterfly stroke. Making friends, being part of a team, learning self-discipline, learning responsibility, setting goals, and working toward goals are far greater experiences than medals, ribbons, high point awards, and national rankings. (Just ask a retired swimmer!)

Larger Picture number three: The team! Remember that you and your child are part of the team and have an opportunity to contribute to team strength, team growth, and team unity.

n Educate the coach. Does your club have a "coaching education" item in its budget? We think you should and it might be used for any or all of the following:

1) People Skills Seminars. In our office we regularly receive bulletins announcing various "people skills" or "management skills" seminars in the area. On your team there are surely people who receive the same kind of bulletins at work. Ask your Board to send the coach to a seminar.

2) Coaches' clinics. There are many throughout the year and throughout the country. ASCA World Coaches Clinic is the largest with over 1000 coaches in attendance.

3) Senior Nationals. If the team does not have senior national qualifiers, give the coach the option of attending the senior nationals in place of a clinic. It's a great place to receive an education.

4) Purchase books, magazines, and memberships for the coach. All of these things are an investment in your team's greatest asset, the coach.

n Recognize the coaches' experience and education. This is understandably a very difficult task for many parents. Your children are precious and turning them over to a coach, who often times is a young coach, is unsettling. Coaches, however, have hours upon hours of experience working with young swimmers just like your child and will try to make their best judgments in the best interest of your child's long term swimming development. In addition, we're hopeful that your coach has attended clinics, frequently exchanges information with other coaches, and has taken ASCA's home study courses.

n Try not to take it personally. All parents want to see their children be successful, however, some parents get too emotionally involved in their children's successes and setbacks. They love to win through their children, and they hate to lose. What needs to be remembered is that some children physically develop later than others, some children are more talented at playing piano than swimming, and some children simply do not like to swim. Whatever the reasons, your child may not be winning ribbons, or qualifying for zones, or beating all the other swimmers in his practice group. When this happens, remind yourself of the greater values of swim team participation such as fitness, friendships, fun, goal setting, and self-discipline.

n Be aware of the overzealous, know-it-all, win at all costs, swim parent. There are usually a couple of parents in every club like this who continually challenge the judgment of the coach and the Board of Directors. Their opinions are based upon emotion, self serving interests, limited experience, and limited knowledge. Their motives are rarely in the interest of the team. They oftentimes try to gather support to change decisions and can wreck serious havoc in a program. What you can you do is support the coach and Board of Directors, and try to educate the parent. One of the greatest untapped resources for parent education are parents of former age group swimmers (now older senior swimmers or college swimmers.)

n Remember all the different people a coach must work with. A coach must work with dozens of parents. Be sensitive to the fact that a coach is under tremendous pressure to please as many people as possible while making decisions he knows not everyone will be happy about. A little support from a friendly parent can make a coaches job far more pleasant than if he feels he is always alone.

The lesson for coaches and parents, simply stated, is that both groups need to try to communicate with each other with greater respect and understanding for each other's position. To strengthen the relationships between parents, coaches, and programs and to improve the chances for maintaining a long term relationship both coaches and parents need to work on this.

Practice and Competition for 10 and Unders

News For

SWIM PARENTS

Published by The American Club Swimming Association

2101 North Andrews Ave., Suite 107

Fort Lauderdale FL 33311

___________________________________________________________________

Practice and Competition for 10 and Unders

“As Swimming Parents New To The Sport, What Is Best In Terms Of Practice and Competition For Our 10 And Under?”

Answered by Ira Klein, Level 5 Coach, President of ASCA

A wide variety of Age Group Swimming programs throughout the country. Each program functions with different goals and purposes and each operates under different conditions. Therefore, it is important that a young swimmer participate in a program that is compatible with his or her goals and desires. Above all, each Age Group program should be enjoyable and satisfying!

Programs for 10 & Under Swimmers should always stress satisfaction and enjoyment, never records and awards. Swimmers who are pressured to break records (whether it is a team, local or national record) will not get full pleasure and enjoyment from his or her achievement. Instead, he or she will feel the mental stress of being pressured. This is an easy way for a swimmer to lose interest at an early age.

For younger swimmers, emphasis should be placed on proper stroke mechanics. It is much easier to learn how to swim correctly at a young age that it is to correct bad habits years later. For actual training, four-six hours per week is sufficient. All four strokes should be taught and practiced and the drills need to be repeated often. Intervals should generally be kept short so that a swimmer can concentrate on proper stroke techniques and demanding at to early age or too repetitive, the swimmer most likely will end up leaving the sport.

Using kickboards and fins for drills is beneficial but they should be used moderately. This is also a good age to introduce flexibility and conditioning exercises – but not strength or weight training. Swimmers will naturally gain strength, coordination and agility with games and activities such as relays, Sharks and Minnows and other fun activities. Especially at this age, the swimmers should be encouraged to participate in other activities (i.e. soccer, gymnastics, music or scout programs).

Competition should not be pressured and self - improvement should be stressed. Meets should be held to a one and at most two-day affair lasting no longer than four hours. Parents need to be very supportive of their child and the coach. Try not to second guess the coach, but work on maintaining an open dialogue between you and the coach to learn more about what your child is doing and how you can help.

Finally, always remember that they are a child first, last and foremost. Every child should leave the practice and each meet with a smile on their face wanting to come back to the next practice and next meet for more enjoyment

When Sally Swims Poorly

This is a good read, as I think seeing the big picture (as I have said many times) is important, especially with our 9-year-old swimmers who still have a year of competition as a 10 & under. It discusses the best way to handle your swimmer when they are upset about a race – and as a parent it can be hard to see this disappointment. The time is not always the ultimate goal in one race; it is the little things they do that are setting themselves up for success for the future. Things that make the future coaches excited to have them, like the swimmers that do 3-5 streamline dolphin kicks off of every wall – I saw more of that this past weekend than I have seen all year from this group – as well as long pull outs. One swimmer finally slowed down his pull out, and in a 50 race actually popped up to take his first stroke right next to the front of the pack that had already taken several strokes. Was it a little too long, on the turn no, just was a little tired – but will those pullouts help them in the 100 breast and eventually the 200 breast when 50’s are no longer an event of choice – yes!

News For





SWIM PARENTS


Published by

The American Club Swimming Association

2101 North Andrews Ave., Suite 107


Fort Lauderdale FL 33311



___________________________________________________________________




When Sally Swims Poorly…




How Mom and Dad Might Talk To Their Child at a Swim Meet






Swim Meet conversation between parent and athlete can be either highly productive, or highly counter-productive. Your goal as a parent, should be to contribute to a positive swim meet experience for your child. This is the same goal as shared by the coach and the athlete. It is important that all three sides of the triangle be working together on meet days, as well as the rest of the swim year.




As I travel the country talking to parents, and observing swim meets and the effects of individual athletes, a few things stand out for comment. The inter-relationship of athlete, coach and parent on the days of swim meets is one of the most important. To discuss this adequately, it is necessary to define the role of each person.




The athlete attends the meet to attempt to gain, or affirm some progress that has been made in their development. This may take the form of a personal best time, or holding a stroke technique together for an entire race, or executing accurately a particular strategy for "splitting" the race, or any of a multitude of other possibilities and combinations. The role of the athlete is the active one. It is up to them to perform, and the meet day is a selected time to perform the experiment.




The role of the coach on meet day needs to be thoroughly understood. It is dependent upon how the coach has presented themselves in the athlete's swimming career. Primarily, for most coaches, they are the technical resource that a swimmer depends upon to help them improve. They also serve as a role model, and to a greater or lesser extent, as a motivator, friend, and co-author of the strategy or experiment being performed on that day.




The parent is the racing "support crew". The parent makes sure they have all their human needs attended to, and continues their parental function of supervising personal development. Their love, attention, and caring are key ingredients in creating a successful experience on race day.




Athlete, technical support, and human support. That's all it takes.




Now, back to the question of meet conversation. Lots of talk goes on at a meet, and coming and going around the meet. Let's focus on the conversations that go on around a particular swim, and see what can be learned from that item.




Sally Smith is eleven years old, and she is about to swim the 100 yard freestyle. Sally is a pretty good little swimmer, and has a best time of 1:01.3. She'd like to go a personal best time in this event at the Oskosh By Gosh Meet, and she and her coach, Rita Bobeeta, have been talking all week about how Sally has to concentrate on keeping her stroke long and strong during the last 25 yards of her race.




Now, the race has been seeded in the bullpen (interesting name, huh?) and the swimmers have been released until they swim. Sally knows she is supposed to stop and talk to Rita before she swims. She goes over to see her.




"Hey Kiddo, ready for the big swim?"




"Rita, I got it all under control, and I'm ready to go fast."




"What do you need to remember on this swim?"




"To keep my stroke long on the last twenty-five."




"Not just long, but...."




"long and Strong!"




"Right! Have a real good swim now. Go get it!"




Sally blasts off, and gets out in front immediately. Mom and Dad cheer like crazy. Sally turns for home, and......




(Now, at this point let's consider two endings. We will take a look at each one.)




Sally turns for home and...... shortens her stroke bit by bit as she gets more and more tired, and struggles to the wall, with a time of 1:01.5.




Sally is disappointed, and she goes back to Rita choking back tears, and stands there, waiting for Rita to speak.




"Well, not quite what we wanted. How did it feel?"




"It felt awful! I was terrible! I couldn't do anything!"




"From here, it looked like you were only pushing through to your waist, and towards the end of the race maybe not even that far. Where should your hand finish?"




"At my suitline."



"And what did your arms really feel like?"





"I got all hot and my arms were burning at the end of the race."




"Do you know why that is? I think you haven't had enough good fast pace work yet. Next month, we'll work on that, and by the Billibong Open, you'll be much better!"




Sally leaves Rita happy and feeling much less like the Ugly Duckling. Now, she heads to see Mom and Dad.




Most parents I talk to, think that this is a tough time to deal with their children. It isn't! (The tough one is next.) All Mom and Dad have to do in this case, is two simple things:




First, deal with human things.




"Are you warm enough, honey?"




"Put on your warmups, and your towel"




"Do you need something to drink?"




Then, if all is well, STOP. Do not get into the race unless the child wants to. That is not your role. You are there to support.




But lets say that Sally comes back and says....



"I Stunk!"





Mom and Dad say, "Stunk? Stunk means you smelled badly. All that chlorine is kind of nasty, but I wouldn't say you stunk. What do you really mean?"




After Sally has a chance to get rid of her emotional response, you should ask, "What did Coach Bobeeta say?"




Now is a good time to explore this. What you are trying to do, as a parent, is duplicate the same mind-set the coach is trying to re-instill. Analyze what went wrong with the experiment. You don't have the technical expertise to offer the answers that Coach Rita does, but by asking questions that require a technical response, you shift Sally out of the emotional context. This is nothing more than an experiment that did not turn out the way you wanted it to. This is perfect swim parenting. You reinforce the message that the coach is sending.




If you will simply take care of the human needs, and shift the emotional disappointment to an analytical response, all will be well in Sally's world.

How To Be A Winning Parent

USA Swimming always has a good article for parents to help educate them as coaches are educating their swimmers. Please check out this read as I try to get back into the "blogging/tweeting" of things.

BY DR. ALAN GOLDBERG, COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

If you want your child to come out of his youth sports experience a winner, (feeling good about himself and having a healthy attitude towards sports) then he needs your help! You are a vital and important part of the coach-athlete-parent team. If you do your job correctly and play YOUR position well, then your child will learn the sport faster, perform better, really have fun and have his self-esteem enhanced as a result. His sport experience will serve as a positive model for him to follow as he approaches other challenges and obstacles throughout life. If you "drop the ball" or run the wrong way with it, your child will stop learning, experience performance difficulties and blocks, and begin to really hate the sport. And that's the GOOD news! Further, your relationship with him will probably suffer significantly. As a result, he will come out of this experience burdened with feelings of failure, inadequacy and low self-esteem, feelings that will general¬ize to other areas in his life. Your child and his coach need you ON the team. They can't win without YOU! The following are a list of useful facts, guidelines and strategies for you to use to make you more skilled in the youth sport game. Remember, no wins unless everyone wins. We need you on the team!

1. When defined the RIGHT way, competition in youth sports is both good and healthy and teaches children a variety of important life skills. The word "compete" comes from the Latin words 'com" and "petere" which mean together and seeking respectively. The true definition of competition is a seeking TOGETHER where your opponent is your partner, NOT the enemy! The better he performs, the more chance you have of having a peak performance. Sport is about learning to deal with challenges and ob¬stacles. Without a worthy opponent, without any challenges sport is not so much fun. The more the challenge the better the opportunity you have to go beyond your limits. World records are consistently broken and set at the Olympics because the best athletes in the world are "seeking together", challenging each other to enhanced performance. Your child should NEVER be taught to view his opponent as the "bad guy", the enemy or someone to be hated and "destroyed". Do NOT model this attitude!! Instead, talk to and make friends with parents of your child's opponent. Root for great performances, good plays, NOT just for the winner!

2. ENCOURAGE YOUR CHILD TO COMPETE AGAINST HIMSELF. The ultimate goal of the sport experience is to challenge oneself and continually improve. Unfortunately, judging improvement by winning and losing is both an unfair and inaccurate measure. Winning in sports is about doing the best YOU can do, SEPARATE from the outcome or the play of your opponent. Children should be encouraged to compete against their own potential, i.e. Peter and Patty Potential. That is, the boys should focus on beating "Peter,” competing against themselves while the girls challenge "Patty.” When your child has this focus and plays to better himself instead of beating someone else, he will be more relaxed, have more fun and therefore perform better.

3. DO NOT DEFINE SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN TERMS OF WINNING AND LOSING. As a corollary to #2, one of the main purposes of the youth sports experience is skill acquisition and mastery. When a child performs to his potential and loses it is criminal to focus on the outcome and become critical. If a child plays his very best and loses, you need to help him feel like a winner! Similarly, when a child or team performs far below their potential but wins, this is NOT cause to feel like a winner. Help your child make this important separation between success and failure and winning and losing. Remember, if you define success and failure in terms of winning and losing, you're playing a losing game with your child!

4. BE SUPPORTIVE, DO NOT COACH! Your role on the parent-coach-athlete team is as a Support player with a capital S!! You need to be your child's best fan. UNCONDITIONALLY!!! Leave the coaching and instruction to the coach. Provide encouragement, support, empathy, transportation, money, help with fund-raisers, etc., BUT...DO NOT COACH! Most parents that get into trouble with their chil¬dren do so because they forget the important position that they play. Coaching interferes with your role as supporter and fan. The last thing your child needs and wants to hear from you after a disap¬pointing performance or loss is what they did technically or strategically wrong. Keep your role as a parent on the team separate from that as coach, and if, by necessity you actually get stuck in the almost no-win position of having to coach your child, try to maintain this separation of roles, ie. on the deck, field or court say, "'Now I'm talking to you as a coach", at home say, "'Now I'm talking to you as a parent". Don't parent when you coach and don't coach at home when you're supposed to be parenting.

5. HELP MAKE THE SPORT FUN FOR YOUR CHILD. It's a time proven principle of peak performance that the more fun an athlete is having, the more he will learn and the better he will per¬form. Fun MUST be present for peak performance to happen at EVERY level of sports from youth to world class competitor! When a child stops having fun and begins to dread practice or competition, it's time for you as a parent to become concerned! When the sport or game becomes too serious, athletes have a ten-dency to burn out and become susceptible to repetitive performance problems. An easy rule of thumb: IF YOUR CHILD IS NOT ENJOYING WHAT HE ARE DOING NOR LOVING THE HECK OUT OF IT, INVESTIGATE!! What is going on that's preventing him from having fun? Is it the coaching? The pressure? Is it YOU??! Keep in mind that being in a highly competitive program does NOT mean that there is no room for fun. The child that continues to play long after the fun is gone will soon become a drop out statistic.

6. WHOSE GOAL IS IT? #5 leads us to a very important question! Why is your child participating in the sport? Is she doing it because she wants to, for herself, or because of you. When an athlete has problems in her sport do you talk about them as "our" problems, "our jump isn't high enough", "we're having trouble with our flip turn,” etc. Are they playing because they don't want to disappoint you, because they know how important the sport is to you? Are they playing for rewards and "bonuses" that you give out? Are their goals and aspirations YOURS or theirs? How invested are you in their success and failure? If they are com¬peting to please you or for your vicarious glory they are in it for the wrong reasons! Further, if they stay involved for you, ultimately everyone loses. It is quite normal and healthy to want your child to excel and be as successful as possible. BUT, you cannot make this happen by pressuring her with your expectations or by using guilt or bribery to keep her involved. If they have their own reasons and own goals for participating, they will be FAR more motivated to excel and therefore far more successful.

7. YOUR CHILD IS NOT HIS PERFORMANCE. LOVE HIM UNCONDITONALLY. Do NOT equate your child's self-worth and lovability with his performance. The MOST tragic and damaging mistake I see parents continually make is punishing a child for a bad performance by withdrawing emotionally from him. A child loses a race, strikes out or misses an easy shot on goal and the parent responds with disgust, anger and withdrawal of love and approval. CAUTION: Only use this strategy if you want to damage your child emotionally and ruin your relationship with him. In the 88 Olympics, when Greg Louganis needed and got a perfect l0 on his last dive to overtake the Chinese diver for the gold medal, his last thought before he went was, "'If I don't make it, my mother will still love me".

8. REMEMBER THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-ESTEEM IN ALL OF YOUR INTERACTIONS WITH YOUR CHILD-ATHLETE. Athletes of all ages and levels perform in DIRECT relationship to how they feel about themselves. When your child is in an athletic environment that boosts his self-esteem, he will learn faster, enjoy himself more and perform better under competitive pressure. One thing we all want as children and NEVER stop wanting is to be loved and accepted, and to have our parents feel good about what we do. This is how self-esteem gets established. When your interactions with your child make him feel good about himself, he will, in turn, learn to treat himself this very same way. This does NOT mean that you have to incongruently compliment your child for a great effort after he has just performed miserably. In this situation being empathic and sensitive to his feelings is what's called for. Self-esteem makes the world go round. Make your child feel good about himself and you've given him a gift that lasts a lifetime. Do NOT interact with your child in a way that assaults his self-esteem by degrading, embarrassing or humiliating him. If you continually put your child down or minimize his accomplishments not only will he learn to do this to himself throughout his life, but he will also repeat YOUR mistake with HIS children!

9. GIVE YOUR CHILD THE GIFT OF FAILURE. If you really want your child to be as happy and as successful as possible in everything that he does, teach him how to fail! The most successful people in and out of sports do two things differently than everyone else. FIRST, they are more willing to take risks and therefore fail more frequently. SECOND, they use their failures in a positive way as a source of motivation and feedback to improve. Our society is generally negative and teaches us that failure is bad, a cause for humiliation and embarrassment and something to be avoided at all costs. Fear of failure or humiliation causes one to be tentative and non-active. In fact, most performance blocks and poor performances are a direct result of the athlete being preoccupied with failing or messing up. You can't learn to walk without falling enough times. Each time that you fall your body gets valuable information on how to do it better. You can't be successful or have peak performances if you are concerned with losing or failing. Teach your child how to view setbacks, mistakes and risk-taking positively and you'll have given him the key to a lifetime of success. Failure is the PERFECT stepping stone to success.

10. CHALLENGE-DON'T THREATEN. Many parents directly or indirectly use guilt and threats as a way to "motivate" their child to perform better. Performance studies clearly indicate that while threats may provide short term results, the long term costs in terms of psychological health and performance are devastating. Using fear as a motivator is probably one of the worst dynamics you could set up with your child. Threats take the fun out of performance and directly lead to your child performing terribly. IMPLICIT in a threat, (do this or else!) is your OWN anxiety that you do not believe the child is capable. Communicating this lack of belief, even indirectly is further devastating to the child's performance. A challenge does not entail loss or negative consequences should the athlete fail. Further, implicit in a challenge is the empowering belief, “I think that you can do it".

11. STRESS PROCESS (skill acquisition, mastery and having fun), NOT OUTCOME. When athletes choke under pressure and perform far below their potential, a very common cause of this is a focus on the outcome of the performance, i.e. win/lose, instead of the process. In any peak performance, the athlete is totally oblivious to the outcome and instead is completely absorbed in the here and now of the actual performance. An outcome focus will almost always distract and tighten up the athlete insuring a bad performance. Furthermore focusing on the outcome, which is completely out of the athlete's control will raise his anxiety to a performance inhibiting level. So IF you TRULY want your child to win, help get his focus AWAY from how important the contest is and have him focus on the task at hand. Supportive parents de-emphasize winning and instead stress learning the skills and playing the game.

12. AVOID COMPARISONS AND RESPECT DEVELOPMENTAL DIFFERENCES. Supportive parents do not use other athletes that their child competes against to compare and thus evaluate their child's progress. Comparisons are useless, inaccurate and destructive. Each child matures differently and the process of comparison ignores significant distorting effects of developmental differences. For example, two 12 year old boys may only have their age in common! One may physically have the build and perform like a 16 year old while the other, a late developer, may have the physical size and attribute of a 9 year old. Performance comparisons can prematurely turn off otherwise talented athletes on their sport. The only value of comparisons is in teaching. If one child demonstrates proper technique, that child can be used comparatively as a model ONLY! For your child to do his very best he needs to learn to stay within himself. Worrying about how another athlete is doing interferes with him doing this.

13. TEACH YOUR CHILD TO HAVE A PERSPECTIVE ON THE SPORTS EXPERIENCE. The sports media in this country would like you to believe that sports and winning/losing are larger than life. The fact that it is just a game frequently gets lost in translation. This lack of perspective frequently trickles down to the youth sport level and young athletes often come away from competition with a dis¬torted view of themselves and how they performed. Parents need to help their children develop realistic expectations about themselves, their abilities and how they played, without robbing the child of his dreams. Swimming a lifetime best time and coming in dead last is a cause for celebration, not depression. Similarly, losing the conference championships does not mean that