-
Parti
All We Need to Know AboutChildhood Development
PAT HENDERSON, ED.D. (2004 ASCA WORLD CLINIC)
Patricia Henderson is currently a consultantregarding school
guidance and counselingprograms and a school counselor
educator.Having spent 19 years as a counselor educator,she is
currently teaching at the University ofTexas at San Antonio and Our
Lady of the LakeUniversity Prior to this she spent 30 years as
aschool counselor, supervisor and administrator.Of those years, the
last 19 were as Director ofGuidance at Northside Independent
SchoolDistrict in San Antonio. By the end of her ten-ure in
Northside, she was leading the work ofapproximately 200
professional school coun-selors. She is author or co-author of 19
articlesand chapters, and 9 books and monographs.She is co-author
with Dr. Norman Gysbers ofDeveloping and Managing Your School
Guid-ance Program that, now in its 3rd edition,continues to be one
of the American Coun-seling Association's best selling
publications.Its companion. Leading and Managing YourSchool
Guidance Program Staff, is recognizedas an important text in the
newly emerg-ing doctoral programs in school counseling.She has been
an active leader in professionalcounseling associations at the
local, state andnational levels and has received awards forbeing an
exemplary counselor and supervisor,and for her writing and
research. She can bereached at [email protected]
I am at the age when I talk about mykids, I cry. Do you like
this title? Onthe sign out front, the official title isactually
Child Development, but I kindof thought understanding the
develop-mental needs of your age groupers waskind of cute. I am a
beach person andgroupers where I come from. SouthTexas, are food
you know? Fish. Sothat will give you a hint about wherethis is
going to go, right? As Georgesaid, I am here to provide you kind
ofan overview of information about thedevelopmental habits of the
kids that .you work with, and about their psy-chological and their
social needs. Youare the experts in their athletic needs,and their
athlete needs. Of course theycome together so I would hope that
I
am going to remind you at least andprovide you some information
that youwill find useful in your coaching. Myultimate goal would be
that you woulduse this information so that you canalter your
coaching style to match theneeds of the kids, particularly the
agelevel kids that you are working with.
I spent ten years as a high schoolteacher, counselor,
administrator and29 years as a supervisor of schoolcounselors and
as an administrator ofschool counselors at all levels -
el-ementary, middle and high school, soI professionally have had
exposureto a wide range of the young peoplethat we serve. I can't
call them allchildren. For me, high school kids areadolescents and
then that becomes toolong a word so rather than adolescentsI just
call them kids. I hope you candeal with that. My mother would
bevery unhappy because that is prettyslangy. I retired from the
school districtand I have spent four years now asa University
instructor of counselors- counselors in training so that is
mybackground. My background is as aschool counselor. Now, the good
newsabout that is our association is alsoASCA - the American School
Counsel-ors Association - isn't that funny?
My kids both started into swimmingwhen they were 9. Matthew has
justretired into Masters at 31 - they aretwins. Laurel was a
lifeguard untillast year. Their dad was a swim coachso what can I
say? From the time theywere little teeny babies they were sit-ting
in infant seats on the pool deck -being terrified by water polo
guns andstart guns and you know, all that kindof stuff. Actually,
swimming is prettyclose to us and I do think that I have
this brain damage that chlorine causes,but I think that that is
something youall ought to worry about too if you doeverything in
indoor pools. I did wantto tell you that I am not a coach. I
hopeGeorge left so I can say this -1 hope Ilearned the distinctions
and roles andresponsibilities between parents andcoaches. Some of
my best friends arecoaches, right? And as you see - mykids have
been real lucky in terms ofthe opportunities to work with
reallygood coaches - including George andhis staff - Eddie Reese,
Dave Salo wasthe coach for Laurel when she swamwith Nova Aquatics
and a pretty goodother coach I don't know if you knowDoug Andrew -1
don't know that he isreal visible at the national level, but hewas
their novice coach when they werelittie kids. When they started
aftersummer league playing in the waterstuff and he was wonderful -
a perfectnovice coach.
I would like to know just a little aboutyou. This is kind of
hard in a room thissize - I could have you stand up andtell me your
life story and that wouldbe the end, right? We would just dothat
the whole four hours and I wouldnever have to do another thing, but
Idon't think that would be useful. Solet's do some standing up to
get sortof a flavor for it. How many of youcoach kids that are 8
and under? Ifyou would stand up so we can seenumbers -1 think this
will help youget some of that lunch settied;down. Abunch. Okay, how
many of you coachkids that are 11 and 12 - you can staystanding or
sit down which ever worksor you can bob up and down,'I mean,that
would be what happens when
continued on page 18
www.swimmingcoach.org 17
-
continued from page 17 All We Need to Know about Childhood
Development: Part 1
you watch those little kids, right? - bobalong. 13-14's? 15 and
over? Highschool kids? So the whole range right?Now you can sit
down - thank-you. Ididn't ask for master's coaches becauseactually
the master's coaches haveto go through the second childhoodwith
these people right? So maybe weshould be backing them. How manyof
you have been coaching more thanten years - stand up. Oh wow - so
youall know more than I do - I shouldn'thave done this - this is
very intimidat-ing, okay? How many of you havebeen coaching between
five and tenyears? Okay - and then two to fiveyears? Yeah - there
we go and howabout for whom - are there any peoplefor whom this is
the first year? Let's dogeography - do you want to do that?How many
of you are from - this is theUnited States now - the
northeasternstates? So you won't understand howI talk right? So I
need to tell you that Iwas actually raised in New York and Iwent to
college in Massachusetts andwhat happened to my accent? Howabout
the southeast? Because now Ihave spent 22 years in Texas and thatis
what happened to my accent! Howmany of you are from the
Midwest?Where we swim in the snow? South-west? So a little
scattering - I forgot totell the Midwesterners thatTwas bornin
Chicago so I had that accent too. Feelfree if you have something to
say outloud - feel free to use your own naturalaccent - it's really
okay. Are thereany - the first person I met at this clinic,actually
yesterday was someone.fromLeeds so that would of course haveme ask
- are there any people whoare from - not from the United
States?Stand up please. Let us welcome you.You are impressed with
the flatness ofthe land - is that right? The gentlemansaid it is so
fiat and I said well youcould go through Ohio and then go fora
thousand miles and see nothing butjust fiat - so welcome.
I guess I ought to get into it don't youthink? I have a couple
of generaliza-fions that I want to provide you withahead of time so
that you know whereI stand or where we should stand, orhow we stand
on this together. Thereality is that I think the goal of the '
three major players in the swimmingenvironment are kids, the
coach andthe parents. They do share a goal.Their goals are the
same. Thougheach may have some different pri-orities. There is a
basic goal that allpeople have according to psychologists-
particularly Alfred Adler - that allpeople really relate the goals
in theirlives to work, friendship and love. Sowork - the
contribufions they make tosociety - the expenditure of their
ef-forts - the expressions of who they are- are contribufing to the
greater good ifyou will. So that jigsaw puzzle imagethat George
used - friendship. Thesense of who they connect with - whothey hang
out with. Who they like tospend time with - you all probablyhave
coaching friends. You also havepersonal friends - you know -
friend-ship in a variety of ways, but we needthose connections no
matter how muchof independent loners people are. Loveof course -
suggests the south - thepartner, a much more infimate kind
ofrelationship than a friendship, but bothof those dimensions are
there for sure.
I think of swimming goals as work,related to the work goals,
because thatis where kids do those things - wherethey connect with
people - where theyactually make their contributions tothe being to
themselves, to the fam-ily. A primary goal for the coach ofcourse
is that the kids will become thefastest swimmers possible and
thensecondarily will have some of theirneeds met - some of their
basic needs- the ones I just talked about or thereare all kinds of
ways you can list basicneeds. My own opinion about that isthat
everybody gets their own defini-tion of what basic needs are, so
forthe coach, being the fastest swimmerp^ossible is the primary
goal and help-ing meet their basic needs is probably asecondary
goal, although working withyoung people it could be the
oppositebecause they aré intertwined. For thekid - when the kid is
on the pool decktheir primary goal is to be the best, .fastest
swimmer possible and that thatwill somehow contribute to their
basicneeds and having their basic needs metwhich contributes to
their being thebest, fastest swimmer possible. Then
ulfimately, which is the application oflearning from meeting
those first twogoals - a goal for the individual, theindividual's
parents, the individual -parents and for the coaches is to havethe
kids - the young person - growinto an adult person who is a
healthy,integrated, balanced human being ofgood character.
The parent's goals are to meet thebasic needs of their kids
first. Swim-ming - being the best, fastest swim-mer as possible is
their second goalfor their kids. Somefimes that makesa huge
difference in how the parentapproaches the situafion or the
coacheiapproach a situation, or even how thekid approaches it. A
kid sometimesgets caught in the middle of those twosort of
different definitions of primarygoals, but it does help if parents
knowthat that meefing the kids basic needsis their primary goal and
that swim-ming is a secondary goal for them,but it needs to also be
a goal for them- but to understand that difference iswhat helps
contribute to their differentunderstandings of their roles and
ofcourse each has a different role.
The athlete's goal is to succeed. Hisrole responsibility is to
do the worknecessary to succeed. For each swim-mer their swimming
career is aboutthem. It is really their business sotheir role is to
do it - to be it and thecoach's role is to help them. To helpthem
be the best athlete they can beand recognize the great infiuence
thatyou have over the rest of what they do.So, when the kid is
primary - the coachis the next level of infiuence - thisincludes
the swim program - swimteam and the whole swimming partof their
life. This puts the parents ina little shadow because the parents
ofcourse - extremely infiuential as well,but in terms of the actual
learning andswimming dynamic and compefing inswimming dynamics they
are a second- they are second class citizens? Iprobably wouldn't
say it that way -1probably didn't want to say it that waynow. I
don't think I would say it thatway to the parents, but they do have
a
continued on page 2C
18 ASCA Newsletter Volume 2009-01
-
continued from page 18 All We Need to Know about Childhood
Development: Part 1
lot of influence on what kids bring tothe pool. Another huge
factor in whathappens is the team. Getting back tothat basic goal
of belonging - of havingfriendship. The team really providesfor
that and so understanding theinfluence and the force of the team
isalso something that I am sure you areaware of, but we need to not
forgetabout it here as well.
So the team is a group of people work-ing together to achieve
the same orshared goals. Their goals are to helpeach other and
themselves to be thebest class of swimmer as possible - tohave
their basic needs met as relatesto the situation and to be of
goodcharacter - go grow up to be healthy,integrated, well-balanced
humanbeings all together. There we have it- different roles - each
important, butvery different and some basic defini-tions - we are
talking about child orkid developments - we are talkingabout
looking at generalizations aboutthe patterns of such developments.
Wedo know that everybody is unique andthat it is important to
remember that.We also know that as people grow upfrom little bitty
babies in their cocoonscoming all the way out to being adults-
people go through similar steps inthe process of growing and some
ofthose steps are a little more challengingto them and a little
more challengingto the people around them than others,but that is
what develops the develop-ment part in each.
It doesn't stop at the end of childhood- the human growth and
develop-ment is as a whole the lifespan. It isalso human nature to
want to go tothe next level. People want to grow.They want to
develop. They want tocontinue on the path of conquering
theuniverse, which I guess is their kind ofgoals they come up with.
A potentialproblem actually for coaches and kidsis if not everybody
goes through thesedevelopmental stages successfully .Weall get
stuck in some places and stay insome places longer than others.
Someof us are very late bloomers. Some ofus are accelerated - have
accelerateddevelopment. I don't know if any ofyou saw the movie -
"Arrested Devel-
opment" - you probably know a lot ofadults who are really still
stuck in ado-lescence right? They are still stuck intheir high
school traumas - looking for- searching for their identity or
whathave you, but a caution to people whowork with kids, including
coaches, isthat you do need to be pretty in tunewith yourself about
where you aredevelopmentally in terms of thesepsychological and
social dimensionsbecause it is where you are stuck, whenyou are
stuck in someplace and thekids come in contact with that placewhere
you are stuck or they challengeit, you can fall right into the game
ofthe child so that the kid is getting madand throwing a temper
tantrum andstomping their feet and doing all thatand you tie right
into that. You juststomp your feet and if you are stuckin that
phase you stomp your feetand you know, you throw a tempertantrum
back and of course that is notproductive for the kid and it
certainlyis not productive for you. Being awareof what pushes your
buttons is reallyimportant if you want to be completelysuccessful
with the kids that you areworking with.
Age groups. To the researchers in childdevelopment the age
groups are6-12 year olds, then there is an in be-tween stage that
are the 10-14 year oldsand then adolescence is spans from IS-IS and
we are going to go back to thosein a little bit, but the reason I
sharethose with you is that you can see thatthere is overlap,
right? That middlestage which shows you that some kidsget there
quicker than others. Somekids start that at 10 and some last orstay
in it longer - until 14 whereas sortof the typical age for the end
of that is12-13. What you need to picture is thebell curve - you
know, the normal dis-tributions - the bell curve. I mean, kidsfall
within that bell curve. The bunchof them are in the middle, but
there arethat 2% on either end that are faster orslower in terms of
their developmentso please bear that in mind. Of courseto me - I am
an educator right and so Ithink about elementary school chil-dren,
middle school children and highschool kids.
To label children pre-adolescent, al-though I found a new word -
in gettingkind of up-to-date in terms of doingthis presentation -
that I really likebecause I do not like pre-adolescencebecause it
is pretty demeaning to kidsthat are in the middle and being
calledthe kids in the middle only makesthem worse because they are
in themiddle and it is a problem, but if youlabel it and make it
kind of like yougive them permission or what, butanyway -1 kind of
like the "teenager"as opposed to the teenager which I cantell you
really think that is a great ideaWhat I will do when I give
assign-ments to my class I call them trans-esents which is a word
about 3,000years old - trans meaning you know,in transition - it is
the same kind ofprefix, but nobody has ever heard ofthat word. I
don't think it is well used.You can't just say puberty because
thatis only one aspect of it, so there wehave that.
Think about how broad those agespans are. Think about a 6 year
oldyou know, think about a 12 year oldyou know, think about a 10
year oldyou know, and a 14 year old youknow, think about a 13 year
old youknow and an 18 year old -1 mean,you are talking huge chunks
of time ingrowth and development. Individualsdevelop at different
rates and we aregoing to talk about basic needs becausethat is one
of the primary areas -1 sortof like this listing of what
people'sbasic needs are. This was done byWilliam Glasser who says
that the fivebasic needs of people -and we havemy first typo -
survival, love, belong-ing, power, freedom, fun - not freedonfun
which sounds risqué and danger-ous, right? We also know
Massler'shierarchy. There are other lists of basicneeds of people,
but I like this becauseit seems to provide a kind of a
roundecdefinition of survival - food, clothing,and shelter. It also
can mean survivalof themselves - survival of their psychfas well as
of their bodies - so survivalis a need - the need for love - the
needto belong which is where the teamcomes in - where all the
people comein - as loves comes in as well. Power.Power over their
own universe -
20 ASCA Newsletter Volume 2009-01
-
power - some kind of power over theirown destiny - freedom -
freedom to beautonomous - freedom to have auton-omy - freedom and
then fun which hehas only added in the recent times andI think this
fim is a really importanttopic. You can overlook its importanceand
we think it may be irrelevant, butwe search for fun. There are
differ-ent definitions of what fun is, but it isan important need.
Finally the team,which we actually already talked abouta bit and
that team is a place where alot of that plays out. So, the team is
agroup of people working together toachieve mutual goals. When I
thinkof a team it isn't just the people whohappen to all be signed
up on the sameroster or members of the same club.To actually be a
team then you have tobe working together productively orsometimes
not productively, but tryingto work together productively.
So the premise of what we are talkingabout today is that myth -
the moreyou understand the developmentaldimensions of your athletes
the betteryou will be able to help them be thebest athletes they
can be. That is thebasis of it and also of course the partabout
being good human beings. Imake a couple of assumptions as well- the
assumptions are that swimmersare not immvme from
developmentalissues. They do not all grow up -theyall go through
those developmentalstages - they all go through them atdifferent
rates. They are simply notimmune just because they are swim-mers.
The other thing they are notimmune from are the other things
thatimpact their development which wecall situational issues -1 am
sure youcall them those too, but they do live inthe world of today
where kids comefrom abusing homes, neglectful homes- in fact -
sometimes that is why youget them, right? Homes where alcohol-ism
and drug abuse goes on becausewe do know that that cuts across
allsocial boundaries right? In all eth-nic boundaries and the rest
of that.Divorce, remarriage - the divorce rateis closer to 507o
than it used to be, pov-erty, swimming is kind of expensiveso I
don't know how much poverty,but some of you probably work withkids
who come from impoverishedneighborhoods, hopefully, so that
they
get the opportunities as well and thenhomelessness.
Kids are not immune. The swimmersare not immune from these
things.What I can say to you - those of youthat are not from the
United States -most of the literature that I am familiarwith has to
do with kids in the UnitedStates of America, but I also know
alittle bit about internationally and alot of - some of the work
that has beendone there and the human growth anddevelopmental
stages are pretty uni-versal to human beings regardless
ofgeographic location. Certainly the situ-ational issues would
vary, but we arenot talking much about those; todaywe are talking
about the developmen-tal issues. Another assumption is thatthere
are connections between think-ing, feeling, behaving and acting
thatwhat someone thinks infiuences howthey feel and can influence
how theyact. How someone feels influenceshow they think and how
they act andhow someone acts infiuences how theythink and feel, so
those are intercon-nected in how people do things. Howwe go about
our lives and being awareof that is pretty important because wehave
a tendency to work in the head alot with their thinking. Their
feelingsare there and their actions stem fromthose as well and then
as far as basicbeliefs - effective helpers - coaches,teachers,
counselors believe that peopleare basically good - that if left to
theirown devices, the kid or the adultwould do the right thing. In
order toreally help kids grow then you haveto believe that. It is
also important webelieve that to recognize environmentsituations -
relationships with otherscan move people off these tracks
ofdevelopmental health and they movethem particularly if they are
vulner-able, if they lack courage, if they lackself-discipline, if
they have some kindof flaw if you want.
Another belief is that one of our goalsis to help kids avoid or
get rid of self-defeating behaviors that essentiallyinterrupt their
healthy growth anddevelopment. Now we are going to goabout ihe rest
of this. Typical develop-mental stages of kids. We are
actuallygoing to talk about different facets ordifferent dimensions
of kids. As we gothrough the day there are five of them
and we are going to go through eachone and talk about them. The
plan isfor us to do the 6-12 year olds first andthen we are going
to start on the 10-14year olds. So, the topics - it is kind
ofartificial to sort out these topics andseparate them out because
they are aUinterconnected, but that is how we aregoing to go about
it. The age levels thatwe already talked about - the 6-12 yearolds,
the 10-14 year olds, the 13 to 18year olds - in children we talk
aboutbuilding foundations - just like you doin swimming - it is
also true about lifeand about them being people -10-14and
"tweenagers" live through thisturmoil of change. Every single
aspectof their humanity is changing duringthis age - this
developmental stage somanaging the turmoil of that - I thinkit is
the most challenging age groupthere is actually and it is the most
chal-lenging time of life for the individual,although, going from
6-12 isn't allthat easy either and 13-18 isn't eithersince the
teenager's primary task is tobecome adults and that is a hard rowto
hoe as well.
We are talking about what kids arelike. We are going to talk
about themin terms of these six dimensions. Weare going to talk
about them physicallyin terms of how that relates to
theirpsychological and social development.So the parts of their
bodies that - wewait for that specifically are the brain- brain
growth and of course the devel-opment of their sexuality. The
seconddimension that we are going to speakand talk about is
cognitive develop-ments - their minds - how they think- solve
problems - how they developas moral human beings - their
moraldevelopments - their ethical decisionmaking capacities. We are
going totalk about their personal developmentas they grow into
themselves whichincludes personal identity, personal-ity and
self-concept development andmaintenance and then we are goingto
talk about emotional development- about their feelings and then for
eachof those age groups their social de-velopment, the
relationships throughtheir general patterns of interacting- their
relationships with their friends- their peers - other significant
adults.I put career in here. We are not going
continued on page 22
www.swimmingcoach.org 21
-
continued from page 21 All We Need to Know about Childhood
Development: Part 1
to talk too much about careers, butthe career in the broadest
definifion isabout helping kids look towards theirfuture. They do
carry forward lessonsfrom swimming into their careers so Iam
inviting you all to go into careersin swimming. They certainly take
thework habits and all the rest of that withthem.
Also important is of course their cul-tural idenfifies and how
they developtheir idenfity in terms of their cultureand for each of
those I am going tobe so bold as to offer from my profes-sional
self some suggesfions for youall. Things that you might do,
youmight choose to do, might consider do-ing, or might not want to
do. However,you feel about it. To help yourselves,to help the
athletes to help the team, tohelp the parents given the things
thatwe have talked about. We are going tostart with the 6-12 year
olds buildingfoundafions -1 would like you to takea minute and
think about the 6-12 yearolds that you see. Perhaps on your - ifyou
are taking notes or have a piece ofpaper or whatever - think about
a list- just kind of quickly - two seconds- think about ihe most
likeable thingsabout the kids in that age group - the6-12 year
old's -the most likeablething that comes to your mind aboutthat age
group. So, what is likeableabout them? Secondly, I would likeyou to
think about what is most inter-esting about them. And then what
ismost problematic about them to you?What is puzzling to you about
them?So, likeable, interesting, problemafic,puzzling - and now what
I would likeyou to do with those lists is talk toyour neighbor in
two-somes, three-somes or whatever and share someof the thoughts
that you have had. Ifyou don't have a neighbor - you mayhave to
move. We all want to belongyou know, so talk to somebody. I amonly
going to give you a few minuteshere so don't get carried away.
Thatis as much play fime as you have. Letme get you to share just a
couple ofexamples - what are some of the thingsthat you find
likeable about the 6-12year olds? A couple of examples - oneor two
or three? They are happy, fun,have high energy, and they are
will-
ing, trusting - very interesfing. Howabout the most interesting?
Siensifiveor insensifive? Oh sensifive - sensifivehumor. That is
actually one of thosethings all the way through. Otherinteresting
things? Yeah, get knockeddown and get back up - some kind
ofresilience - they are literal, yes. I haveto tell you a little
story - one of the stu-dents in my class is a first grade teach-er
or maybe a kindergarten teacher -1am not sure, but she did the
thing thatyou always do is doing something onthe blackboard and
somebody is mis-behaving and she says, now Reba bequiet and so a
little while later they aresupposed to be doing seat work andshe is
sitting at her desk and she feelssomething on the back of her head
andshe turns around and it is Reba and shesays - what are you
doing? And shesays I was looking for the eyes in theback of your
head. Isn't that cute?
So, you have got to be careful, right?Or maybe you don't, to
just be aware.How about problemafic? Their energyis the opposite -
it is a good thing anda bad thing or what is problemaficabout it -
what do you mean by that?Yeah, focus. Yeah, they get older- yeah is
that good or bad? Sad, right?Attenfion span, right and then whatare
most puzzling? Inconsistencies- so you never know quite where
theyare or what exactly is going to happenthat day. Other things
that are puz-zling? Yeah, they are very differentright? They come
different -1 reallybelieve that - not everybody believesthat, but
having had a boy and girltwins - I just know that they come
dif-ferent. They come different genderlyand they come with
different person-alifies. There are just some things thatreally are
innate so there is that. Physi-cally is the first area of
developmentthat we are going to talk about with the6-12 year olds.
What are some gener-alizafions that map some of the thingsthat you
have said? Not necessarily sospecifically so in terms of their
physicalgrowth and development - it is a timeof stabilizafion. They
are gaining morecontrol of their bodies - their muscle- large
muscle coordinafion work sothen up to this point - up unfil six
theyare pretty much just growing. Which is
why having little kid's swim program;and Mommy and Me and all
that isreally fun, but to try and build a teamof 5 and 6 year old's
- is like teachingpre-kindergarten - yikes.
Their growth. They are sfill growing,but it has leveled off
quite a bit and sothey are able then to get some controlover their
bodies so their coordinafionincreases - it doesn't get perfect
unlessthey come with some talent in thatdirecfion, but they get
more confidenc(because they actually do have morecontrol and their
bodies do get morebalance. Issues that are recurrent andcertainly
have implicafions for theathletes are minor injuries. Of my twokids
- Matthew was the injury proneone. We took him to a swim meet -and
this may have been his first swimmeet and he was climbing - it was
anoutdoor meet - Mission Viejo and hewas climbing on one of those
outdoortables that has an umbrella and thelittle benches all
attached to it and ofcourse he fell off and he dislocated
hisshoulder. You know, minor injuries.So that is how he started and
forever- he has not been very coordinated onland. The other issue
in today's worldis obesity, which I think is interesfingand kind of
frightening. In talking tothe coaches at our club, what they
havinoficed is the kids who start swim-ming at 8 and under - when
they com«they are physically fit. They comefrom families where they
actually havtsome direcfion about their physicalinvolvement. They
have been acfive.They may have been introduced toother sports
already so they have someknowledge base about that. When thecome in
9 years old and older, many olthem are overweight. Most of them ora
lot of them are overweight and theyare obese. They are not acfive.
Theyhave failed at other sports. They arelooking for an acfivity -
the parents anlooking for acfivifies to get them awayfrom their
TV's and into somethingthat is going to help them not be obesefor
the rest of their life. So those are theissues that challenge them
physically.
So working in terms of their physicaldevelopment - working with
6-12 yearolds. As you see they are getfing more
22 ASCA Newsletter Volume 2009-01
-
coordinated - getting more control -doing better things - help
them buildtheir confidence. They have beenthrough - the rest of
this period is kindof challenging to their own personalconfidence
and so anything that youcan do to nurture them moving in theright
direction. Some of their behavior- in terms of the injuries - it is
impor-tant that you not overreact becausethat sets a whole pattern
for how theyare going to handle injuries in athleticcompetition or
anywhere. You prob-ably know that, but the parents prob-ably do not
and so there is another oneof those places where the major
playersneed to kind of connect. Of course itwould be helpful if
every adult thatworks with kids talked about nutrition,particularly
with the families and thekids who are obese or overweight. Youall
know a lot about that - the rest of usdon't know very much about
that andit is not a subject that is done in schooluntil actually
older ages by and large.Helping people leam about the valueof
nutrition is really important.
Moving on to their generalizationsabout their capacity to think
andto make moral decisions - we havealready said, well you said
they wereliteral - they are - they are very con-crete things. Kids
between the agesof 6 and 12 by and large are not readyto think
abstractly - they think aboutwhat they can see, touch, taste, feel
andnot real deeply at that - they are justreally concrete. You
can't have "whatif" discussions. They are not goingto go there.
They cannot project outlike that. They actually are getting
abroader vocabulary and so you thinkthat they think more abstractly
thanthat, but they may not. So you cannotassume that they are
smarter than theyare because you can listen to their vo-cabulary.
How they are able to figureout what you mean about what you
aresaying is that they interpret from yourtone of voice and your
demeanor morethan they do from the actual wordsthat you say. Being
careful to not sendmixed messages. For example - don'tsound mad if
you really aren't.
Concrete - they do leam to distin-guish left and right somewhere
in thisage span. They can read the clock andduring the time span
they can cometo understand how it works. They
understand about speed, but not aboutpacing tempo because that
is kind ofan abstract concept. They do appar-ently during this time
frame do/canrace against themselves - come tounderstand that they
can race againstthemselves for a better time, but thatcomes at the
12 year old end of thatage span. It certainly isn't there at
thebeginning. So what they are capableof cognitively is inductive
logic - theyneed to have concrete examples ofthings, which then
they can put into atrue understanding. You cannot givethem a
generalization and then deriveinformation from that. So you
build.If you want them to leam a conceptor a thought you have to
start fromspecifics - the more concrete you canmake it the better.
If you can make itinto building blocks or a game betterstill. When
they want to leam thingsthey leam by questioning, by explor-ing and
through guided participation,which is what I was getting at
¿iroughgames. By questiorüng when they aska question - answer it,
but again, youhave to listen to what you think theyare
understanding. You can only go sofar in terms of answering the
questionas a whole, but you have probably hadthat experience where
a kid asks yousome question that sounds kind ofdeep and you go into
a great explana-tion about it and you know, they say- can I go and
play now? I think of myfirst attempt to talk to my kids aboutsex
and - aren't we done yet mom?So learning to read when they havehad
enough information and then youknow about exploring, right? This
iswhen they hide under the bleachersand climb into lockers and lock
them-selves in or you know, whatever kidsdo as they explore the
environmentthat you provide for them. They dohave short attention
spans that are justa reality, selective attention, althoughthey can
seem to be doing a lot ofthings and not listening and they
areactually listening. Matt has just startedto coach a
pre-competitive little bunchof age groupers and he can't
believethat they can be bobbing up and downin the water and still
understand whathe wants them to do for the drill. I justlaugh
because that is how he was - thatis how he is today actually. You
cannotassume they are not listening, but theydo have short
attention spans.
I worry a lot. We put a lot of kids ondrugs. We think that we
want to callthem ADD because they seem like theyare difficult -
they just can't focus forvery long so we prescribe Ritalin
orwhatever it is that they are prescribingand then suddenly we have
hookedthem into the drug culture. It is reallyscary because a lot
of this is age typical,and age appropriate. Especially forboys. So
now having done that littlesoapbox - thank you. They can plan,they
can problem solve, they can setgoals. They have to be real simple-
these step by step processes, but itis not too young to start them
settinggoals for their swimming times ortheir length of time in
terms of ac-tual training the workout. Endurancecapabilities - that
kind of thing. I laugh- elementary counselors teach theirkids how
to plan and to solve problemsin steps and kind of like a
scientificmethod, but at the elementary level- that is like three
steps and at the mid-dle school level it is about six and bythe
time they get to be adults of courseyou get a diagram that goes
acrossthe whole wall! Keeping it simple andconcrete, they are
capable of begiruiingto leam to think like that.
In terms of moral development - theirmorality at this point is
based on au-thority figures. If you are an authorityfigure and you
tell them what to dothey are going to do it. They knowwhat you
thirik is right and wrong,what their parents think is right
andwrong and by and large - they aregoing to adhere to that, or at
least theyare going to know that is what theythink of as right and
wrong - whetherthey adhere to it or not might beanother issue. They
also learn frommodeling. So it is important that youmodel good
moral development, right?In making rules - in making sure thatrules
are clear, adhering to the rulesas established and if you break
rulesthat have somehow been publishedthat they are the right rules.
Beinghonest about that, owning it so thatthey just don't see a bad
example. Youcan't think that you have fooled them,that maybe they
didn't notice, theynotice because you are real importantto them.
Advice for you - be concrete
- encourage - yes?
continued on page 24
www.swimmingcoach.org 23
-
continued from page 23 All We Need to Know about Childhood
Development: Part 1
t
I am not kidding about working withparents to turn some of that
TV andstuff off, but exercise some judgmentand some caution about
what they areletting their kids watch. On the otherhand if the
parents are there withthem or you are there with them, youcan
actually do some guided learn-ing. What was wrong with that?
Whatwas wrong with those choices thatthose people really made
there? Youcan ask them to discuss that so thatyou can continue to
point out that itis a bad model, but you can't controlit. You can
only try to work around it.Other things for you, you can enforcethe
rules fairly, model making, moraldecisions, rationally - when you
haveto decide what is right and wrong andif it relates to what is
happening withthe team, doing that kind of openlyand then
establishing a respectfulclimate where everybody respectseverybody
else and treats each otherwith respect is important. They do
nothave to like one another, especiallyas they get older. That gets
to be a bigthing. But you can start teaching it atthis age. They
need to respect eachother, whether they know them or not.There
needs to be a polite climate. Youhave a lot of responsibility in
that aswell. Making sure the kids are respect-ful of one another,
respectful of theirparents, respectful of you and you arerespectful
of them. That is a respectfulclimate. So in terms of their
personaldevelopments - some generalizationsabout their identities -
self-concept- personalities - and what have you.Not only as I
mentioned to begin withand we were talking about the physi-cal,
they have some better control andsome better management of their
bodythemselves. They are getting moreunderstanding about who they
are.They are out of their families now.They are in some bigger
environmentsand so they understand that somethinginside of them.
They discover that theycan do some things. They discover thatthey
have brown eyes or blue eyes thatthey can read or they can't read,
orthey can swim freestyle really well ornot. They can think about
the thingsabout themselves.
They are capable of self-regulation.They don't do that so well
at 6, butthey can do that pretty well by 12 andthat is to manage
their own interac-tions, their own behavior, they arenot just
little animals any more - theyactually are developing into,
thinkingactive human beings. They do tend tobehave according to
their own ideasabout things. They tend to think thatthings are the
way they think they arerather than how they are or the waythey want
things to be. A swimmingexample about this perhaps are littlekids
in competition - it seems to methat for all the workouts that you
doand the stroke and technique and youare helping train them in a
bunch ofstuff - the little boys get into a race andthey just thrash
their way from one endof ihe pool to the other because all theywant
to do is win. They have not madethe connection yet - they think
becausethey are thrashing - it feels like theyare working really
hard so they thirikthey are going really fast. That is anexample of
a pretty confused idea thatisn't exactly right. Girls seem to
wantto swim perfectly. Girls are a littiecomplacent - complacent
little girlsget in the water and they do their littlething, but
they can't go very fast. Theydon't really care about winning
whichis okay, except when you are trying toteach them that the
purpose of some ofthis is to actually do both things - it isnot
orúy do your stroke perfectly, butalso trying to move quickly. They
thinkthings are how they want them to be.
They are egocentric. They are thecenter of their own universe.
Theyreally don't get it that other peopleare out there. To them,
they are thecenter of the world. It is all about meand that kind of
thing but this is howthey are. I mean, you can't change thatuntil
they grow out of that. One of thethings that is a little
frightening is - ohit is not frightening - it is challeng-ing is
that their self-esteem - the basicrespect that they have for
themselvesstarts now. It is beginning to solidify.You have a lot of
infiuence over theirbasic self-esteem. There is research
thatsupports that a person's self esteem isbased on two things for
children - oneis the closeness or the discrepancy be-
tween their goal and their accomplish-ments. If there is a big
gap betweenwhat they are actually able to do andthe goal that they
want to accomplishthat is going to negatively impact
theiiself-esteem. So, what do you need todo there? Right. Scale the
goals downBring the goals back to something thatis accomplishable.
Baby steps. Littlesmall steps at a time. Because theirself-esteem
and their self-confidenceare all interconnected remember youwant
them to read you. Teaching thenhow to set goals and be sure that
theylearn to set appropriate goals. Thenthe second one you have
less controlover, but if I could, I would encourageyou to work this
problem and that istheir self-esteem is directly connectedto their
perceived support they getfrom their parents. Not all parentsare
good parents. You know, they arenot all well trained. Which is kind
of astrange thing so parental support caneither be too much or too
littie or evennon-existent. Sitting on the bleachersat swim meets
with fellow parents - 1notice many more of the over-protec-tive
types. The ones that are actuallythere kind of are over-protective
andover ruling and they actually do a lotof damage to kids because
they donot know how to encourage them andnurture them and that kind
of thing.They do a lot of criticism. Sayingthings like "Oh you
didn't beat Matt"or "what did the coach say was wrongwith that
swim" not how great it wasor good finish or you know,
somethinjpositive. The more they get hoveredover and the more
criticized they get ccourse then the less their self esteem isand
then the same thing is true about ithe parents don't support them
at all.
In meeting with our Northside coachewe were talking about the
parents, ancswimming is sort of an "invisible fort"is how one the
coaches put it. Now,fathers all want their littie boys to
plajfootball and so if they didn't make thefootball team then they
kind of, youknow, then they are not quite as intoswimming. They
don't get it. Theydon't mean to not be supportive, butin reality
they are not all that inter-
continued on page 2
24 ASCA Newsletter Volume 2009-01
-
continued from page 24 All We Need to Know about Childhood
Development: Part 1
ested and they are not very helpful inthat respect. So, working
that prob-lem - particularly for the 6-12 yearolds is knowing that
one of the mostimportant things that they can learnhere is how
valuable they are as people- whether they are good swimmers ornot -
they are still good people. Theother thing that happens of course
atthis age level that you probably alsoare aware of is that they
feel inferior bycomparison. They have gone, especial-ly at the 6, 7
and 8 year old part of this- they have gone from their familiesand
their families are loving it all, youknow, they feel like these
little perfectbeings, right? They may feel small andall that, but
they feel okay. But as soonas they get with a bunch of other 6
yearolds and 7 year olds whatever age itis when they first come
into this, theysee how people are different and thattends to work
against them.
If somebody is better at jumping ropesthan they are then you
know, theydon't feel so good about themselves.Then the whole world
of psychologybelieves that you develop that inferior-ity complex
and it lasts you the restof your life. I don't happen to
believethat - we can impact that - we can helphim pass that by
helping them feel likethey are worthwhile human beingseven if they
are not quite ready to dosomething. The other thing that startsis
that their basic personalities aredeveloping. Defining what a
personal-ity is, is kind of a whole other game,but it may be how
what they presentto other people - some of it is internalwho they
are - how they look at life.The Child Development Specialists
talkabout these facets of personality - thatpeople are extraverted
or introverted,optimistic or pessimistic, agreeableor disagreeable,
egocentric or altruis-tic, conscientious or not, and open
tolearning to new ideas or not. Differentpeople have in their
personality thetendencies to be neurotic, to be irratio-nal, to be
anxiety prone, to be fearful,to get hung up on things, to be
ob-sessed or to be emotionally disturbed- they see their actual
presence. Someof them look like normal behavior ortypical behavior
so you cannot over-
generalize, but you can sort of see ithappening. One of the
things aboutpersonality is that it isn't completelyinnate. It isn't
pre-destined how youare going to be, but dreams do comewith
tendencies, but the people whoare influential in your life can
makesome impact on that and you would beinfluential in their
lives.
Suggestions for you - are that you sup-port and encourage them.
Encouragingmeaning having a meaning differentthan maybe we always
think about.Encouraging is not like a pat on theback, a little pat
on the fanny, or givingthem a hug. But encouragement in
psy-chological terms. You are talking aboutdemonstrating that you
have faithin them, faith in their capacity to dothings and letting
them try to do thingsthat maybe even you don't think theyare ready
to do. You have to let themtry you know. This is that businessabout
being over-protective, but theythink they want to swim a hundredand
you know they can't get past the65. You have to let them try and if
theydon't make it that doesn't make thembad people, it just makes
them set alower goal for themselves. If it didn'twork - maybe there
was some otherway to rethink that. But by letting themtry it
teaches them to have faith anddemonstrates to them that you
havefaith in them. That they actually mightdo it - that they can do
it. They comewith a lot of courage - one of thosewriters makes a
huge point about this.I think about Gulliver's travels. Theyare
very small compared to everythingaround them, but meanwhile theyare
still trying to conquer their world.They are trying to learn
everything -touch, taste, feel - everything so theycome with a lot
of courage and thenour goal is to - would be to build onthat
courage, not to kill it.
Healthy competition - competition as awhole is a topic of its
own that I don'tknow a whole lot about. You probablyknow more about
it than I do, but I doknow that it is there. Again, I don'tknow
whether it is innate or whetherit is inbred or ingrown or partial
orboth, but certainly their parents are
also competitive and have set somemodels like that. They need to
leam asmuch as possible what it means to behealthfully competitive
- competitivewith their friends. The people that theare swimming
with are their friendsand are going to stay their friends foras
long as they are together in thatenvironment. There is a lot of
impactthat we have helping that be healthyas well as competitive,
but I think thatneeds to be taught. I don't know thatit is present
in the adult cultures. Oneof the things that I know seems
likecoaches find frustrating, is that you ara parent substitute -
you are parentingfor the kids whose parents don't get itor are
neglectful. I know our coachestalk about frustration that comes in
th(middle of winter in just their Speedoswith their kick boards.
Wet - youknow, wet hair, wet whatever so allthat kind of stuff so
you know, helpinjthe parents do a better job is of courseimportant
right? No, you carvnot as-sume that they know anything. Thehardest
job - what is it - did someonesay something good? It sounds like
it.Would you like to share that? We areall ready for a laugh - you
don't wantto do it. That is true - t'ust me - it istrue. It is a
job we don't educate for,right? I mean, we don't - it is not ahigh
school graduation requirementin most states so that would be the
laslchance to actually get everybody sothere is no training. •
All We Need to Knowabout ChildhoodDevelopment: Part 2will be in
an upcomingASCA Newsletter.
26 ASCA Newsletter Volume 2009-01
