Hi, it’s Mike! I want to talk a little about what it’s like when I am working with younger swimmers. I feel my job as a coach and as a teacher is to not only make classes fun, but also to make sure I am empowering your children, your swimmers, to be the best they can be.
It is easy as a coach and as a teacher to make my role all about the feeling I can get when I help my swimmers, so they believe I am the giver of all things rewards. This makes me an extrinsically motivating factor, something outside the swimmers pushing them. What we really want to focus on, and what we focus on here at Gold Medal Swim School, is empowering our swimmers, your kids, to be the best they can be from within. The goal is to get them to acknowledge their own success.
One thing I do at the end of each class which I found really helps, is to ask my swimmers what they learned that day. I ask them to tell me one thing they learned, what they are going to bring home with them. I have them go through that process and then help them get excited about the process they went through. So, then I am rewarding the internal process of learning, growing, and developing, and it’s their accomplishment that I celebrate with them.
On the other side, I want to stay away from me always giving the praise, being the feeder for their excitement or the re-enforcement for their confidence. I keep it in mind every class, every day and I really work on it with my own kids. Mostly, I want to share a little about Gold Medal Swim School and how we roll, and what we’re aiming to accomplish with your swimmers. See you around the pool!
