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May 25th, 2010 | Gymnastics, planning, psychology, safety
This could have been 40yrs ago.
I waxed nostalgic. … Memories of digging up clams, splashing the girls, trying to drown the boys in the shallows. Family holidays at wonderful Rathtrevor Beach on Vancouver Island.
But that photo was taken last weekend.
Kids are the same. But one thing has changed.
A swimming pool with that many children would have only one lifeguard.
What year was it that parents became so much more protective?
Coaches today need skills. Parent management skills.
tumbling, tramp, diving, cheer, acrobatics, circus, dance, martial arts, X sports ... and more
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5 comments ↓
Probably the year they figured out that a rip current can carry a person out to sea in nothing flat.
The year that having your first child was at 30, not 20; the year that not be able to have kids stopped being accepted as “something that happened” and became a fault fixable through expensive, arduous medical intervention; the year that when something like a drowning became the parents’ fault, not just a “normal” childhood tragedy….
Kathryn has some good examples there
I think we’ve entered the time of the “Cult of Children” where many, many parents put all of their energy into their kids, so much that it breaks up marriages and makes for neurotic children that can’t function without their parents being there to “make things right”.
It’s become harder and harder to coach since I was a gymnast and first began coaching, that is for sure. I never remember so much parent involvement (emotionally) and so much vicarious living through children.
Yes. Standing at a distance, watching one’s children play near the ocean is so out of line. Jeez, Mom–go back to the beach house and have a smoke and a few martinis so we kids can drink the beers we stole and do it behind this sand dune before attempting to swim out to the buoys with a good buzz going!
You do realize that you’d be arrested today for letting any child under twelve play in the shore unattended, don’t you?
I understand frustration with helicopter parents, but I’ve also seen plenty of coaches in this sport that shouldn’t be allowed near children at all.
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