How hard should you push your athletic daughter?
By the age of 8, your daughter is probably well immersed in one or two activities she participates weekly. Whether they are individual or team activities, she’s probably become quite good at it, too. For my daughter, she has two main passions she takes very seriously above all else: cello and swimming. Her interest in music was self-initiated and self-guided. In addition to weekly group classes, her private cello instructor works with her to ensure she learns the fundamentals from the ground up. For this activity, she generally proceeds at her own pace driven by her passion and availability of time. The other activity, however, is where she feels most of the pressure.
Readers may recall that my daughter and I had a pep talk about her wanting to quit swimming. Rather than swaying her to make one decision or another, I told her that she shouldn’t quit something because it is hard. I also shared stories of my own struggles from when I was a part of a swim team in high school. It helped build empathy and it changed her mindset and approach. But her coach, she continued to moan, is really hard on her.
The quick answer to the question of how hard you should push your daughter athletically is: you shouldn’t; let the coaches do their job. Being identified is an honor. Getting good professional advice is the real privilege. The rest is blood, sweat and tears. Your job as dad begins only where the coaches leave off. It’s your involvement in her activity that matters to your daughter; not your instructions.
When it comes to supporting my daughter in her extracurricular activities, I’m pretty much an Uber dad who chauffeurs her from venue to venue and then sit on the sidelines. I don’t offer much guidance and I don’t second guess the instructors. The cost of these two activities is high and by extension, the schools and instructors have great reputations and deep experience. I see the swim coach put her and her tiny group of 4 to 5 students through the paces. They work on techniques and endurance. My daughter actually had to repeat a level because compared to her peers, she was the weakest. The coach said that repeating the level will make her a stronger swimmer. My daughter felt defeated; but the coach was right. At the end of the second pass, her strength and endurance at the age of 7 were equal to her peers who were all over 10 years-old! Now, at the age of 8, she’s actually a stronger swimmer than those 3 or 4 years older. My daughter’s all but forgotten about the repeated level and she feels extremely competent as she proceeds to work on rescue and CPR. Those were her own goals as she now sets her eyes on the Bronze series which are prerequisites for lifeguarding. Even though, she’s charged by her own progress, she still grumbles about her coach. “Why does he push me so hard? It’s not fair. Nobody else gets this kind of attention. I feel so exhausted after swimming I can’t do anything else!” This is what I hear every time I take her swimming. So let’s unpack this for a moment.
The quick answer to the question of how hard you should push your daughter athletically is: you shouldn’t; let the coaches do their job. My daughter’s main swim coach has a heavy Eastern European accents and they are probably used to barking at Olympic-level athletes far older than she. They can spot talent and they know how to train athletes properly and have done it hundreds, if not, thousands of times. They know very quickly how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Being identified is an honor. Getting good professional advice is the real privilege. The rest is blood, sweat and tears. And your job as dad begins only where the coaches leave off. It’s your involvement in her activity that matters to your daughter; not your instructions. It’s your pep talks that she identifies with. And it’s your unconditional support whether she fails or succeeds and you’ll still be there that will be essential for any of the expensive advice and training to stick.
Don’t compare your child’s performance to a professional athlete’s and judge her for not bringing her A-game on an off-day. A good coach wouldn’t push indiscriminately. They know when and how to motivate and to allow for rest to produce maximum performance. They know when to call out poor effort as well as when to deliver the right dose of inspiration. They will compare her against her own ability from the previous day and plot a trajectory from there; not work backwards from some arbitrarily determined general goal. Essentially, coaches’ advice is tailored made. Don’t undo that and think you are qualified to do better; you are not. You paid a professional to do it; let your daughter have the benefit of that.