Fun Times at State!

photos: Our third grader thought there were maybe six or seven teams participating at the state meet. right: This is before the blanket fell through the bleachers.

Last weekend we took our first trip as a family to the 12&Under State Swimming Championships. The first morning we sat at the tippy top of the old-school wooden bleachers. With two small kids along, I knew it was risky, but seats were limited and at least the top row offered back support.

I sat with the kids as my husband went back out to repark our car, not really sure our creative parking spot was worth a potential ticket. The warmups were fun to watch, swimmers of all sizes preparing for the morning's events. I loved the noise. 5-second clip of warmups

Well, with about seven minutes to go before our son's relay event, our kindergartner said he had to go to the bathroom. And minutes later, our toddler dropped his blanket down through the bleachers... but we made it, without peeing on anyone!

photos: Bucky Badger in the house! right: a big stage.

Tru's relay team took off nearly 30 seconds from its seed time in each of their two events (200 free and 200 medley)--but officially DQ'ed each event--and I'm good with that. In the 200 free Truitt left too early and in the 200 medley, his butterfly arms were not in sync.

As a parent, I thought Truitt's response was age-appropriate, he was disappointed in the DQs, but overall proud of the time each teammate cut. As a parent, I want him to care about his performance (vs. apathy) as long as he can balance that with his self-view, knowing his value as a person is rooted deeper than a swim time, test score or future classification.

I also think it's valuable to talk about disappointments. Some people want to skip right over an issue or ignore it, and I think you lose something there. The highs and the lows have meaning and add value to an experience, so talk about it, admit something hurt or didn't go well and then move on.

We're both proud of him and his growth as a swimmer. And by the time we reached the car, Truitt was already asking for State tournament ice cream.

Questions for You:

- How did your parents handle a loss, DQ, etc?

- What would you focus on as a parent?

- Does something seem funny about the street sign below? Wording seems a little odd, even for a university campus.

On Topic:

Extrinsic Rewards - from USA Swimming
How Achievement, Motivation, and Fear of Failure Develop - from USA Swimming

photos by me