Over the endless years of my children's swim practices that I have endured joyfully attended, one insidious element has remained constant.
Over five teams in two states, both recreational and year-round competitive, there lies a malignant egg.
This egg erupts quite often and spews it's contagion on other unsuspecting families.
We were infected early.
My eldest son started to swim at age five. He, as we have seen in my past posts, is very easy-going, passive, and not that competitive.
At the same time, he has a good body shape for swimming and somewhat of a natural talent. This rarely shows itself at practice. He meanders down the lane. He lets kids that are much slower pass him. He rarely passes anyone.
His work ethic sucks eggs.
He does however become a sleeper agent when we hit meets. Suddenly, on the blocks, he gets into his groove. He sprints. He wins. He qualifies for Pacific Northwest Championships, Age Group Sectionals, and recently his first international meet in Canada.
However, as soon as his feet are out of the water after a race, he's back to being too nice, too easy. Kids that he beat at meets routinely tell him they are faster and they should be in front of him at practice. He lets them go ahead. It's frustrating and ridiculous. And it's starting to catch up with him. If he's always last in his lane at practice, he does not get the continual improvements on the racing blocks.
So, let's reel back a few years to that egg. When we started swimming, all sorts of parents of Eldest's peers bribed. Win a race? Get a video game. Qualify to be on a relay? Off we go to ice cream.
It was insidious and hard to resist. We failed. We tried to make it more educational at least. We tried to make it more along the lines of personal achievement and best times. We cared little for 1st place or if they won. We enacted what I thought was a pretty perfect parenting scheme:
For every personal best on an event, there would be a choice of one book at Barnes & Noble.
Yep. The poison egg? Bribing one's kids to do well at sports.
Our antidote: Tricking them into thinking reading was the best bribe of all.
On the good side, I felt triumphant that I was able to make something educational the bribe. Reading, an element that some parents struggle to get their children to do willing, became the treat.
For a while, this was a perfect situation. My kids, already strong readers, loved their visits to Barnes & Noble. It was painful to my wallet to buy a hardbound Magic Tree House book at $15 that was read in 30 minutes for a 30 second race, but it was better than a food, video games, or stuff alternative in my mind.
But once this bribery door opened, it could not be shut.
Suddenly, we would get 8 personal bests for one child. I was spending at times $150-200 in books in one week. It got out of hand. I started making price limits. I started letting them combine personal bests or what we called "pops," as in popping their previous time, for trips to the movies just to save money.
Uh...not so educational.
When I realized after a few years of swimming, my kids were more interested in negotiating a treat for a race than enjoying winning, I was crestfallen.
We pretty much went cold turkey. We had bribed the competitive spirit and work ethic right out of him, and subsequently my daughter. It became meets only mattered, not technique. Place and best times were important only at meets, not at practice.
So, now it's been a couple of years of no bribing. My son still does not have the competitive spirit at practice, but I think that's because PB got it all. She's ridiculously competitive at practice and meets.
Now enter Li'l Man. He's starting his first FULL recreational swimming season. He's heard of the past bribes and it's hard to tell him no when the other's benefited in their formative years.
And, I have a confession. See this dress?
Well, it's the product of a bribe.
At an important swim meet last year, she bumped her head and was in tears because she didn't do as well in the race as she liked.
She decided she couldn't race the relay which meant that three other girls would also miss out on swimming the relay; more importantly, their parents might be a little cranky that they waited until the end of the meet to discover there would be no relay for their little darlings.
Finally, I bribed. We negotiated. We bickered. We agreed on an entire outfit from Justice for Girls. Ugh!
So, almost a year later, I finally got around to purchasing the said outfit, as well as three pairs of shoes, accessories, a few shirts, etc. Yes, my friends. I assuaged my guilt by offering interest in the form of accessories.
Gah!
CG was confused how a simple outfit turned into the receipts he saw added up.
Now, am I unhappy I bribed at that instant?
Uh, no. I didn't want a posse of scorned swim parents on my butt. BUT! I don't plan to make this a regular occurrence, just like I won't pay for grades. I am going to try to spin these hopefully rare exchanges as celebratory rather than expected. An occasional, unexpected treat for a job well done is more our plan nowadays. They are thinking best times, not bribes, when they get on the blocks.
I also enacted a chore chart beyond their regular chores to be a part of our family. These extra chores and their hard work will finance books, video games, and any approved candy from now on.
Wish me luck! Here's hoping we've kicked this malignant (but admittedly pretty cute below) egg out of the nest.
Update: We had our first intrasquad meet/time trials for the summer swim team this last Friday. It never even occurred to Li'l Man to ask for a bribe. It was a miserable, rainy, cold outside meet. Steam escaped our lips with every breath. Yet, he did little complaining.
He swam hard because he wanted to pass people, rather than be passed. He did well. He might have even been legal in the back and breast which for the first race of the season for a six year old isn't half bad.
The best part was he swam for himself, not for a video game, dessert, book, or other treat.
Swimming fast was the reward.
Houston, I think we might have broken the cycle. Stay tuned...
