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SWIM
PARENTS
Published by The American Swimming Coaches Association
5101 NW 21 Ave., Suite 200
Fort Lauderdale FL 33309
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The Nature of a Judgment Call
Guy Edson, ASCA Staff
For nearly every decision regarding age group swimming development
there is little or no scientific evidence for making a decision one
way or another. How then can a decision be made and who is
best suited to make that decision? In most cases, the coach
is best suited to make decisions about age group swimming
development. That is why a club hires a coach -- to coach and
make decisions. Additionally, most clubs, through the Board
of Directors, give the coach the authority to make decisions.
This authority is usually expressed in a contract or in a written
job description. Unfortunately, it is sometimes given only
verbally and as Boards of Directors change unwritten authorities
also change placing the coach in a difficult situation. It
also needs to be pointed out that a coach needs the freedom to make
an error in judgment on an occasion without fear that he will lose
his job. People learn from making errors. John Kennedy
said, "An error doesn't become a mistake unless you fail to correct
it." Judgment errors rarely result in a long term effect of
preventing an athlete from reaching their ultimate athletic
goals.
Situation: A parent of a 10 year old wants their child to
swim with the 12 year olds (who are doing 2000 - 3000 meters a day
more than the 10 year olds). The parent points out that their
10 year old is faster than some of the 12 year olds?
The coach disagrees. Although there is no evidence he is
aware of that says it is bad for a 10 year old to do 5000 meters a
day he still does not want a 10 year old doing 5000 meters a
day. Why? Based upon his experience of coaching of age
group swimmers, he feels that young swimmers need new challenges
from season to season in order to stay motivated and need a steady
progression of increased work load. He has seen young
swimmers who do too much too soon drop out of the sport before they
have a chance to reach their full potential. He has even seen
it happen to swimmers in his programs early in his career when he
gave up trying to educate a parent and allowed a swimmer into a
group they should not have been in. He says it doesn't matter
that they are capable of doing more work, what matters is they are
given tomorrow at the expense of losing today and they lose the
chance to be the leader of 10 year olds and all the fun of being
with children their own age.
Why would a parent disagree? Each of you may have your
own reasons but the reasons I hear most often are "My child wants
to be with the older swimmers to do more work...my child wants to
be a state champion...my child is bored in the 10 and under
group." Two comments: I am always suspect of whether or
not the child truly wants it or if they are just reflecting what
Mom and Dad really want. Young swimmer's try so hard to
please their parents. The second comment is, there is a
difference between want and need.
How does a parent decide when a 9 year old should go to bed?
Is there conclusive scientific evidence that says a 9 year old
should go to bed at a specific time or sleep for a specific number
of hours? There are probably guidelines written down
somewhere but no definitive answers. The child WANTS to stay
up until 10:00 but you, as the adult, make your judgment based upon
what you feel are the child's NEEDS and your experience.
Quite simply, this is a judgment call and the parent is best suited
to make this decision.
Dr. Ken Low, director of Action Studies Institute, a think tank
focused on adaptive intelligence, says that one of the most
disturbing trends of the 80's was the stripping away of peoples
freedom within institutions to make judgments. People are
given rules and not allowed to use their own powers of reasoning to
make exceptions when exceptions are due. We need coaches in
this country to have the freedom and the Board-given authority to
make judgment calls on age group development issues. This is
how new ideas are formed. This is how programs progress into
the future.
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