Welcome to the exciting world of swimming! Swimming is a fantastic family-oriented sport that should be a pleasurable experience for your child. Here are our parent guidelines to help you make this a reality.

• Let your child know that he/she is the child you love first and a swimmer second.
• Encourage your swimmer lovingly.
• Please see coaches before or after (not during!) practice with any concerns or questions.
• Please do not try to communicate with your child during practice unless it is an emergency.
• Please observe practices from the bleachers right outside of the locker rooms or from the viewing area.  Parents should not observe practice from the deck area where coaches are located.
• If you have a question or concern, address it privately with Coach Seth.
• Stay informed by checking e-mail, team bulletin boards, and the Lightning website at www.skaneateleslightning.com.
• Do not overburden your child with pressure to win or achieve best times. Swimmers perform best when they are relaxed.
• Let your child’s swimming be his or her own.  Encourage the swimmer’s ownership of his/her participation and refrain from reliving your own athletic career through your child.
• Keep your swimming conversations with your child positive and have only positive things to say about the team and coach.
• Back the coach on his/her decisions even if you don’t agree.
• Do not try to coach your child. This is very confusing to them and weakens the coach-athlete relationship.  Even well-intentioned advice can be destructive.
• Let the child start the conversation when it comes to talking about swimming and then LISTEN.
• Be willing to volunteer when the team hosts meets or needs parent support.  Your participation shows your child that his/her swimming is important to you.
• With a positive attitude and willingness to lend a hand you can have a tremendous impact on your child’s athletic environment and his/her love of swimming