@iaparent It doesn’t matter what the overall rate of injury is in a given sport – it matters that this particular middle-school aged kid is fearful enough of diving that she refuses to go to practice sessions and cries when her parent tries to persuade her otherwise.
The fact that she has also has articulated a realistic fear is relevant as a counter to the “finish the season” rationale – if only to avoid the prospect of the parental guilt that would follow if the daughter did get injured while diving, even if the injury is some sort of freak accident that almost never happens.
But other than that – it really doesn’t matter. If the activity was choir practice instead of diving and the kid was refusing to go and crying — you’d still have a parent who is setting up and perpetuating conflict with a middle-school age child and arguing against the child’s clearly articulated wishes rather than being sympathetic or supportive. The message the child is receiving is that the parent doesn’t care about her wants and needs, and that message is being reinforced with every clash over diving practice. And that’s going to impact the relationship this daughter has with her parents through the coming high school years — and may very well undermine the parent-child relationship going forward.
And for what reason, and whose benefit? What is the harm if the child quits the diving team?
To the OP – before you go to the coach to ask about modifications in practice, ask your daughter if that is what she wants. Because if you don’t listen to your daughter, even if your efforts are well-meaning, you may be sabotaging her wishes rather than supporting her. It’s possible that she hasn’t given you the full story – and may not even understand the full reasons for her reticence herself.
There are circumstances when parents need to be firm and be able to tell their children “no”. But I don’t think this is one of them.
I think there’s some middle ground here, and it depends on each individual kid. At some point, many high school/college/professional/Olympic athletes have had to push thru times of fear in their sport, be it diving, gymnastics, football, figure skating, downhill ski racing, pick-a-sport. Many of the athletes who have successfully done that are probably happy they were able to persevere. While for other athletes, once they felt fear, or stopped loving it, it was all over, and that’s ok too, there are lots of other things to move on to.
Again, it depends on the kid, it depends on their desire to meet the challenge and continue training. Some work with sports psychologists to help, while others just need a temporary break. It is very difficult to ascertain what is really at the heart of the matter, and whether it is addressable or not. IMO it makes sense to understand what is going on before making the decision to quit or not, and clearly the OP and her D are the ones in the best position to figure that out.
@calmom I have been working off of the OP that the fear is in doing new dives and the feeling that her teammates do not have the same fear. The advice to discuss and explain why that fear is there and ways to mitigate the fear, including working with the coach, is in my mind a better option (coming from the parent in me as opposed to the coach) than just quitting something she has obviously enjoyed doing for 3 years without the tears. If the fear is something that can be overcome with discussion/modification why give up something she has enjoyed at the first hurdle. If the hurdle, after discussion/modification can not be overcome then quitting seems logical.
I equate this to a lot of different EC. Would the advice be to just quit if a student got a larger role in the school play than they had anticipated and were now scared? If the student government president moved and the VP had to step into the role but was fearful of the new role would the recommendation be to quit? I hope the answer is no at least until a discussion around what the fears are and how they can be addressed takes place. That is all I have advocated, determine the fears and address them before quitting.
My kid was on the swim team and some of the divers were friends. These kids loved diving, and never cried…never when they were challenged with new dives or other things they needed to learn as divers.
None were ever going to be Olympic divers…or even state champs.
I’ll going to go back to what I said earlier…whether a rational fear…or not…this kid is CRYING about having to do this activity. And it doesn’t sound like a one time boohoo, but rather something that seems tombe ongoing.
I would never…NEVER force my kid to continue an activity that brings them to tears and I don’t care how talented the coach or anyone else thinks the kid is. If my kid cried because of this activity, I would let them stop doing it.
If the parents think this kid has an unrational fear, then the cannseek some kind of counseling for the kid related to this. But forcing her to continue this activity is not going to make that fear go away in and of itself. The kid is crying…not just saying “gee, I’m scared when I have to do something hard, and new”.
There are so many…so many wonderful activities for students. Part of their growing is to try things, and discover what THEY like…not what their parents like. Not what a coach likes. Find an activity or two that the student can enjoy and do.
Diving is wonderful…if you love it. Otherwise…not so much so.
I would like to share something with the group on this thread. My D19 was a swimmer. As stated before our lives revolved around swim. She was super dedicated and worked hard in the pool. Never could get her to work outside the pool. I wanted the best for her. Got her on a great club swim team. Always made sure she could get to practice. She never complained about practice. I wanted her to do well in HS. I worried about it all the time. I didn’t really think she could swim in college, but if it happened then great. I gained a ton of knowledge about the sport. As it turns out she ended up being a bit of a shorty. Swimming past HS is tall girls sport. At least swimming at elite levels in college. She didn’t have the HS swim career I and her had hoped for. That is fine.
My second child came along and her sport was basketball. She was alright. She was tall for her age so she had value on the court. I worked with her, but saw pretty quickly that she didn’t love the sport. So we pulled back quicker than with D19. She will probably play tennis in HS. She has dabbled in it much of her life. The HS coach asked her to come out to play next year. I think because half the freshman girls come out for tennis without having ever picked up a racket before. I really don’t care how she does in tennis if she does play. I am not worrying if she will make varsity, etc. And then where it might take her. Not having worry is a great feeling. I stressed about D19 plenty. I am totally opposite about her younger sister.
Youth sports have some great attributes about it, but we all just need to remember number one is the kids should have fun. Otherwise why play. With that being said I am off to a band concert tonight for the youngest and right from band she has to go to a play rehearsal. D19 could never do those activities because of swim. With no swim this fall D19 can do other things like how she made captain of the Scholastic Bowl team and work some to make $$$ for college. The house is calmer, but it would be even better if we weren’t stressing on the college apps.
@iaparent - I have the same take as @thumper1 – this is not a one-time thing, the OP used the plural: " she refuses to go to practice and efforts to get her to go ends up in crying sessions." This has been going on a while and seems to have also morphed into a source of repeated conflict between parent and child.
And why shouldn’t she quit? She’s a kid, she’s spent 3 years on one sport and maybe now its time for something else. The middle school years are a time of huge change, physically, emotionally, and intellectually. I don’t see any reason for a parent to force a kid to participate in one activity vs. another – and certainly the fact that any child has done something for a few years shouldn’t translate into a life sentence. Kids often shift interests as they grow.
It is ok to quit.
One of the best decisions I ever made was allowing my daughter to “quit” ballet after two weeks when she was age 7. I put “quit” in parentheses because she quit because the class was too hard and she didn’t like the teacher, but a year later was eager to try again in a more advanced class with the same teacher, where she did very well - and she continued with ballet for many years – but in that case she just wasn’t ready. By giving my daughter the freedom to quit I also gave her the ability to know when she was ready to try again.
This is one of those situations where I’d find a time to take my kid out for some one on one time, on a day with no scheduled dive practice, and see if I could get her to talk. I’d listen carefully for what’s really going on with this kid, with all the options, including quitting immediately, still on the table, before latching on to a course of action. There’s lots of excellent points made here, but none of know this kid to know what’s best in this case, except OP.
Over the years we’ve had opportunities to let our kids quit things, and try new ones, as well as to help them overcome fears. its work to know which opportunity is which, sometimes.
Good luck to you, OP. I’m interested to know how this works out.
^^^ This. I have said (repeatedly) that quitting is on the table and should be considered. My opinion is just that having a discussion first and finding the root of the problem may make more sense than just quitting without understanding where the fear is coming from and if it can be addressed.
Truth be told my older son cried a lot with relation to sports, generally after losing a game and/or when he made costly mistakes. Every time this occurred my response was the same “We do this because it is fun, once it is not fun we are done. Is playing fun? I ask because crying afterwards would not equate to fun.” His answer, every time, was that the tears were due to frustration. As he got older tears turned into slamming doors and pouting but my response was always the same “Is it still fun?” In later years we have looked back and talked about those times and he would not have changed a thing. He would have never forgiven me had I let him quit every time he cried and pouted that he was done. Sometimes it makes sense, after investigating, sometimes it doesn’t. Every situation is different.
When my eldest DD was in 3rd grade, she was on a recreational coach pitch softball team. She would take like 12 swings to hit the ball (where most of the girls would hit after 2-3 swings). After a while, she said, “Mom, do i HAVE to play softball?” and I said “no, but you have to play something” (as I am a believer in sports) so she just started playing spring soccer instead after that. (i think the issue was that she needed glasses it turns out!)
I’m trying to understand why you would make your daughter continue under these conditions. If she’s so afraid of the sport that she cries when you try to force her to go, why do you keep doing it?
Yes, be done with diving. If she really can’t quit on her own, tell her you insist she take a month (or more) complete break and YOU will inform the coach of the parents’ decision. See how she feels after being away and go from there. She’s only 13…
“I’m trying to understand why you would make your daughter continue under these conditions. If she’s so afraid of the sport that she cries when you try to force her to go, why do you keep doing it?”
I think OP just isn’t sure WHY her kid wants to quit. But definitely not keeping her from quitting. When your kid loves something and then suddenly doesn’t you gotta ask why and see if there is another alternative to quitting something that’s been good.
Well, the daughter has said WHY she wants to quit: " she has become increasingly scared/afraid of the new dives that she needs to learn." Additionally, the OP told us, “the sport will become so intense soon, involving 6 days/week training year round.”
What other reason does the child need? She is afraid of something that objectively is scary to do – and she probably does know about the anticipated increase in training schedule. So that seems to be a very rational reason.
I certainly wouldn’t continue an activity that was frightening to me. It looks to me like the daughter hit her limit about 3 months ago.
Plenty of people are afraid to dive into water. Diving into water from a raised board or platform and trying to do particular stunts when diving makes it even more scary.
No one has ever died from math anxiety. Kids need to take math courses to graduate from high school, and even more math to get into a good college. But if a child’s math anxiety is so severe that the child cries and refuses to go to math class, a good parent will pay attention and seek an evaluation for possible learning disabilities; that child may need extra support or accommodations. Or maybe there’s another reason, such as an abusive teacher, that is at the heart of the tears – but just as much reason for the parent to listen.
Our society does not require kids or adults to know how to dive, much less to do so on a regular basis. There’s a valid reason for making kids learn how to swim, at least well enough to mitigate the risk of accidental drowning – but no particular reason that they need to learn how to dive, much less participate in diving as a sport. So the comparison between forcing a child to engage in a competitive sport that she doesn’t enjoy, particularly when that sport entails an objective risk of physical injury vs. requiring the child to continue to attend school and complete required coursework is simply inappropriate.
I realize that almost all sports involve an objective risk of injury to some degree, and that it is a good thing to encourage kids to get exercise and participate in athletics …but there are some sports that are riskier than others.
I don’t want to question the spinal cord website data but I believe, if they provided the detail behind the diving injuries it would show that almost all of those injuries are to swimmers diving into shallow water. Yes they are “diving” but the injuries do not come from the sport of diving.
It is very difficult to suffer a spinal cord injury in springboard diving. Diving wells/ends of the pool, are typically between 12 and 18 feet deep and as a result it is near impossible to get to the bottom with the amount of force to cause a spinal injury. I have been around competitive swimming and diving for over 40 years and every spinal injury (or potential spinal injury) I have seen has occurred with swimmers diving off the blocks or the side of the pool and either diving too deep or diving on top of another swimmer. While I said earlier hitting the diving board is rare, hitting the board in a manner that would cause a spinal injury is even more rare.
Again I am not questioning the site you linked I just think that a one line statement that does not provide the background detail anywhere is doing a disservice to the reader, the athlete, the coaches, and the sport as a whole. If the stat is truly that dramatic and there are more spinal cord injuries than any other sport (especially based on participation levels of say diving vs. football) then the sport should probably be banned or evaluated but I don’t see these discussions happening anywhere across diving and I think it is a researcher that equates “diving into water” as the sport of diving. Semantics, but important semantics, that leads me to wonder how sloppy the research was.
It doesn’t matter what the data is. The point is that the daughter’s fear is not irrational and that the daughter feels fearful enough that it has led to resistance and tears over a three month period.
The daughter has a right to feel afraid. The daughter has a right to have her feelings acknowledged and there is no compelling reason why a middle-school age kid should continue in a sport that she doesn’t enjoy.
There are times when fears are irrational or when even rational fears need to be overcome for valid reasons. (Example: fear of needles in a medical context). But this isn’t one of them.
I have repeatedly agreed that if after talking to the daughter and understanding the fear that quitting may be the best option and should be considered. My post above was less about the OP and more about the overall misinformation that is distributed against the sport of diving. It is a shame that what on the surface looks like a great resource for spinal cord injuries uses what looks like a sloppy study/conclusion to malign a great sport.
Spinal cord injuries are close to my family as my wife had to rescue a friend from an accident that while she saved his life, resulted in quadriplegia. The incident was just as I described most “diving” accidents are. A collegiate swimmer that dove from a retaining wall into a shallow lake at a party. A terrible tragedy but not affiliated with the sport of diving, although anyone associated with it would call it a diving accident.
One of my kiddos was a diver on a very competitive team ( most were ranked top 30 nationally or international level) . What happened is, although my kiddo was a natural there was no joy. Technically being able to do the dives and having fun doing them is two different things. There were kids who didn’t have the same form ( never would) but they loved diving and they belonged there. Natural skill and desire must BOTH be present. Even if the kid wins every time, it really isn’t worth it. My kiddo has moved onto other things. Sports has always been there. We still laugh about diving sometimes. As parents, my spouse and I had a hard time letting kiddo quit something s/he was so good at.
To dive from 30 feet up and hit the water correctly is a real skill. To time a dive and really nail it, is tough. The coach used to say some crazy things too. ( I like one line was something like if you aren’t in the proper position, it will feel like a taxi just hit you). I think if the coach had been inspirational it might have been different. But looking back it was really a disconnect between my kiddos natural inclination to security vs. a natural gift for gymnastics and diving.
My kiddo went on to do something else at a very high level. Again, maybe this training helped. I think pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is a great thing. But not always.
Also, for the person who raised the issue of safety, you are confusing people diving into shallow water ( often drunk) with trained divers. There have been no accidents that I have heard of in the sport. The focus needed to do this sport means that it attracts a very high level of athletic prowess and focus. Not once did I see anyone seriously hurt. Again, this was a very high level team so the training was impeccable. I would feel safer with my kids diving than playing almost any contact sport.