PARENTS NEED TO BE REACHABLE BY PHONE AT ALL TIMES WHILE THEIR CHILD IS IN PRACTICE!!!

• The Water Warriors coaching staff encourages parents to watch practice from time to time. It’s probably not best to watch practice every day as neither is to never come to the pool. The reality of carpools and transporting young swimmers is that many parents are present every day, though you don’t necessarily need to watch every minute of practice. Here are some important guidelines to keep in mind when observing a practice:

• First, young swimmers want their parents’ approval more than anything. If they know you are watching practice, it’s only natural for some of their attention to be directed to you. However, for the swimmers to learn as much as possible, it is imperative coaches have your child’s undivided attention during practice. We ask that you do not communicate with your child during practice thus competing with a coach for his/her attention.

• Second, we insist that parents do not interrupt the coaches on deck while they are coaching. Since there are different age groups swimming right after your child’s practice and speaking with the coaches is not feasible,please email the Head Coach; Darian Russell. waterwarriors.main@gmail.com

• Third, our coaches spend a considerable amount of time planning weekly training sessions for each of their practice groups. Each training set or instructional drill has a purpose and one practice and/or practice set  often builds on another throughout the week and/or season. If you have not attended all practice sessions, you may not understand the purpose of what the swimmers are doing on any given day.

• Finally, please do not try to coach your child based on what you see (or think you don’t see) him/her do. Many times when teaching stroke skills, the coaches ask our swimmers to do things that might not look correct or might actually be illegal according to the rules, but does have important purpose in teaching skills (i.e. swimming one arm fly or swimming breaststroke with a flutter kick or dolphin kick). 

• With these various points in mind, we ask parents to stay off the pool deck during practice hours and not attempt to coach your child based on what you observe at practice.  At the South Amboy YMCA parents should watch practice from the lobby area.

• We do request that parents drop their swimmers off no more than 30 minutes before practice and pick them up no more than 15 minutes after practice. The coaches have responsibilities outside of practice times and may not be available to "watch" swimmers before and/or after scheduled practices.  

• Please make sure a coach is present before leaving your child at the pool

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