DD8 can do pretty much anything she sets her mind to. She is a good athlete, student, social, artistic, and musical. Up to this point, she has dabbled in areas of interest, and always felt like she could do more than the class was offering.
But now, she is starting to feel pressure and she doesn't like it. She had the district championships for swimming, and I didn't see her smile, not even when I gave her junk food. She beat the other children her age, but not those older. Yet, she wasn't happy. Said she just doesn't enjoy it, hates when people compliment her on her swimming. She is highly competetive, but shy, and loves to push herself to the limits. Her team at 8 is laid back and noncompetetive, which she hasn't been happy with either. I expected that since she had the chance to push at the swim meet, she would be in heaven. She has been waiting a while for the "last meet" when she could quit. So, she focused on one area, got really good, and is ready to quit.
master of none, I know this issue was resolved, and I'm reading this late, but I wanted to comment. Is your DD still swimming?
I wanted to contribute a few things to this discussion, regarding sports. Pursuit of excellence, stick-to-itness, and use of intensive focus may not be the best things for your particular child. Participating in a sport can also teach other valuable things, like have fun, try new things, fail, fail, fail and be okay, fail and be inspired. Also, when you work with others towards a goal the goal is a group goal with group effort and requires a certain amount of agreement that you can't be in control of everything and you can't do everything your way.
I mention these things in the spirit of encouraging someone with a strong tendency towards perfectionism and a cohabitating big inner critic to loosen up and have fun.
Swimming is one of those sports where you jump in the pool and it's just you staring at that red line at the bottom, working, working, working. Every practice, every competition, it's you and the red line. Burn out happens in swimming!
Sure, there are Olympians out there, but they are stand outs. Like gymnasts, swimmers may peak before age 18 and burn out as elites before going to college. This is not an enviable track.
The more sports the better for some (many) kids. One sport ever is a big accomplishment for some kids, but many sports all through childhood is best for others. If a child goes to a smaller high school, and they have above average ability, they can do multiple sports in high school.
These days, there is such pressure to pick a sport and do it year round by age 10. That's not good for kids. There are only 5 starting spots on the basketball team, for example, so kids attending a large public high school probably have been doing year round basketball camps for years prior to making the high school team. The rest of us have the priviledge of diversifying, cross training, and enjoying our participation, exercise, and game playing. Kids doing sports at age 8 may not ever do high school sports, anyway.
I'm not talking to you directly - you sound like you have this all in hand - I just wanted to post this about sports in general. (How wonderful your DD is into every thing!)
Except for gymnastics and swimming, most Olympians do lots of sports as kids.
(I dismount my soapbox, here.)
