My niece (age 9) belongs to a competitive swim club, which has several levels based on skill and ability. When a coach at one level feels a swimmer is ready to move up, they do a trial at the new level for a couple of months and then a recommendation is made to either stick with the old level for a while longer, or to make a permanent move to the new level. There’s no set time of year that the moves happen – just whenever a swimmer has peaked where they are.
My niece was trying out a new level for the last 6 weeks or so, and was ultimately recommended for the permanent move, along with a couple other kids. During the trial, the new level group was making arrangements for a little Christmas party, including drawing names for Secret Santa, signing up to bring cookies and treats, etc. Each time these preparations were happening, the new kids were just left to the side to watch, and now a half hour at tonight’s practice will be devoted to these festivities. An email went out to all the parents advising that the swim would be for the first hour of practice only, followed by the party. A second email went out shortly afterwards saying “Oh, sorry – that email was only meant for the existing team members, not the new members”.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not in any way mad or offended or upset (nor is my niece or her parents). I’m just puzzled, and the analytical manager in me keeps musing over what the possible rationale could be here. If I had new staff joining my team at work (even if only potentially permanently), and they would be around during any kind of team event, I would think it a perfect opportunity to make them feel welcome and help integrate them into the team.
This hasn’t been a case of the new kids just being forgotten because it didn’t occur to anyone to include them – they have been actively, consciously excluded. There’d be no extra cost incurred to include them, since Secret Santa and potluck are self-sustaining, and it’s not like they are total strangers – several of them have come up the ranks together over the years, just at different paces. I feel like I must be missing something obvious, and am just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on what the logic could be in making the call to exclude the new team members from this team event?
My guess is, the coach is worried that the Secret Santa thing might cause a problem involving exchanges between one of the existing team members and one of the new ones. How long have the existing swimmers been teammates? How well do they know each other, and how well do they know the new kids (and vice versa)?
When was the decision made to make these kids a permanent part of the group? Were the other members of the group and their parents aware that these kids were no longer “on probation” but full-fledged members?
The way you describe it I can see where the existing group members may have felt stuck. Suppose they made the decision to include the new kids who were still in the “try-out” stage, and then the coaching staff decided one or more of those kids needed to go back to their old level for a little more experience. Then they’d be in the position of kids who had drawn names for the Secret Santa and were invited to the party but were no longer part of that group (and wouldn’t go to that practice). I can see where that could be really awkward.
Perhaps someone needs to ask the coaching staff whether it would be possible to put all try-outs for rank advancement on hold for the month of December. Unless this is one of those really competitive clubs where the kids’ practice sessions take precedence over family plans, it’s fairly likely some kids won’t make every practice in December anyway.
Decision was probably made by one of the coaches or parents in the past to only include current members, and that precedent has stuck and no one feels it’s that big of a deal to challenge it.
I’m not sure if you’re joking or serious, so serious answer – even if we were bothered enough by this to want to quit (which we aren’t even a little), I don’t even know where one would begin to do so. It’s a large and well-established club, with some very accomplished coaches, including Olympic medalists. I have no idea where you would start to gather the resources for an endeavour like that, between finding the coaching skills, securing hours of pool time weekly, integrating into the meet circuit, etc.
There are definitely no serious conflicts between any of the kids, they all seem to get along fine. How well they know each other really varies. Several of them have been swimming together for years, but as the moves between levels are staggered by ability they may just not all have been in the same group at the same time. So in the new level, there are two kids my niece has been swimming with for years who only levelled up about a month before her, so know my niece far better than they know a number of the other kids in that group.
The party arrangements were all done by the coaches, not the parents, so they were fully aware of the fact that all the new kids would be there over Christmas (the trials were to run until the end of December, regardless of the ultimate decision, so no kids would be leaving during December and leaving anyone Secret Santa-less). In the case of my niece, she was officially recommended to stay at the end of November (but wouldn’t be “full-fledged” until January in terms of official rankings) and I imagine the others who are staying would have been recommended around the same time.
And it’s not. A big deal, I mean. Just struck me as sort of odd that it would have been so easy to include them and make them feel like part of the team, and it’s actually been more complicated and awkward to not include them, so it just got me wondering if there was some “a-ha, that’s why!” reasoning that I was missing.
When I saw the title I thought this was going to be about one of the kids not inviting everyone to their birthday party (and not following the rule of “If you bring the invitations to class you have to invite everyone”). So I’m kinda surprised that this is an “official” activity as part of regular practice. I agree with you, it’s a team, part of teamwork means including new members - helping them get up to speed and just make them feel welcome. I sorta thought that was one of the teamwork skills kids were supposed to learn from competitive sports.
I guess I can understand not including the new kids in the Secret Santa, since they weren’t sure who would be on the team when they drew names. But, it seems like a harmless gesture to include them in the party anyhow, or for the coaches to buy a book of stickers at the dollar store, and give it to the new kids as their secret Santa gift.
I’m also kinda surprised a kids swim team is doing a secret santa. That just seems like way too much trouble for an extracurricular, for something that really has nothing to do with sports.
All that said, I never really did competitive sports as a kid, maybe I just don’t get it either. But stories like this don’t really inspire me to go sign my toddler up for swim and soccer lessons.
Thanks, that’s just it, I guess. Seems harmless to have found a way to let them be a part of it and would’ve been a nice team gesture. Ah well, I’m sure they have their reasons.
I have to warn you - I wasn’t a terribly sporty kid either, and when my own two kids were toddlers I didn’t figure on sports featuring very heavily in their worlds either. But my daughter had different ideas… She loves sports and she does competitive swimming as well (that’s what got my niece into it in fact) and now that my daughter is 10 I am spending about 10-12 hours or more at the pool every week, and I love every second of it because she loves every second of it.
It’s easier to exclude them because then nobody needs to make the decision TO include them. Not making decisions is easier than deciding to change things.
So far my experience with things like Girl Scouts and school and dance is that the people who organize these extra party things have good intentions but are not particularly adept at managing stuff. It’s inertia, it’s not ill-intent. Possibly combined with being pressed for time and just defaulting to whatever the team did last year. And to be honest, sometimes they’re not real deep thinkers.
I’m always trying to balance my reaction of “but it would be SO EASY for them to think this through and make it better for everyone with very little effort or increased cost!” (100% true, and it sounds like it is the case with your niece’s team) with “okay, meanwhile back in reality, they didn’t do that” And then I try to resolve that when it is my turn to be the volunteer parent for whatever, I will take the time to plan for the big picture.
I’m a little bit of a pot-stirrer, though (DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS ABOVE), so I might have sent my kid to the practice/party with however many little gifts for the other new girls, had I known about the situation far enough in advance to pick up some bead bracelet kits.