Boys to Men
Towards Young Adulthood
I’ve written a lot about fit, fast and athletic kids.
More On Raising Fast Kids - by John Hellemans
Our family life is built around supporting our kids’ athletic pursuits. Just like in our own lives… sports crowd out the opportunity for poor choices.
But it’s more than that. Since 2010, I’ve been working to create lifelong partnerships with my kids. With three kids, I figured at least one would be interested in getting to know me at a deeper level. To do that, we needed to figure out a way to have fun together. When you read what follows, know “shared fun” is the underlying motivation that runs through my participation in my son’s development.
The Early Teens
My son is 13 and this can be a tough time for sports.
Like me, he’s one of the youngest kids in his grade.
His age group is currently 13/14, which gives the “early puberty” kids a big edge.
With his swimming, he’s with the older kids and his coach doesn’t adjust the workout for the slower/younger/smaller kids. He’s adopted a survival mindset. He’s seen the faster/older/taller kids in the squad grow up and knows his current situation is temporary. He’s been showing me the qualification times for the State Meet and shaking his head at how far away they seem.
Finding The Win
Middle school is a critical age when many kids (boys & girls) fall out of sport. Finding areas of their lives, where they can “win,” can get them over the hump with their sport.
Fortunately, he does well at school. School gives him an area of his life where he feels like he’s winning. At school, he’s got a solid group of running buddies who have been encouraging him to stick with it through high school - “Look at Axel, just wait until he gets puberty.” The guys are looking forward to dominating in high school.
Do you see what he has there?
Community.
Hope.
Realistic Challenges.
Areas Where He Feels Successful.
If you, or your kids, don’t have that… then build it. It’s our role as a parent to model outcome and manage the environment.
Sharing Experience via Racing
Outside of school, we’ve cultivated a habit of sharing outdoor experiences together. Similar to the Norwegian approach1, we didn’t start “racing” until he was 12. He did his first triathlon (a Sprint Tri in Sweden) on his 12th birthday. Two months before the triathlon, we did a 5K running race - this was his first “adult” race with a finish line.
This doesn’t mean there was a lack of competition in his young life. From an early age, if there was any sort of athletic assessment at school… he wanted to know the record. As you’ll see in the Raising Fast Kids material (linked above), all our kids started racing other kids from a young age.
We seek to lower his competitive drive (because we see it can make him miserable.)
Reassuring him he’s done enough.
Lowering the competitive stakes.
Inserting rest days into his week.
Sharing techniques for reducing pre-competition anxiety.
Finding third parties to reinforce all of the above.
Another technique is to differentiate between “kid fast” and “adult fast.” While doing this, explain the years required to become a fast adult. Sport is an effective teacher on the relation between work ethic and results.
Swimming does a good job using a system of competitive levels (State, Zones, Sectionals, Futures, Juniors). By the time you get to “Juniors” you’re at the beginning of “adult fast.” When you’re a male middle schooler, waiting for puberty, Juniors time cuts are so fast they don’t event register in the realm of possibilities.
SwimRun
SwimRun has been a fun sport to do together2. He’s literally tied to me for the entire race, which is comforting.
Last year, I’d be dragging him through the water behind me.
This year, he’s behind me but there’s much less drag.
Eventually, we will be swapping leads.
Perhaps he will develop into a distance freestyler and be willing to drag his ~60 year old dad around the World Championship in Sweden. It’s not just 13 year olds who need future dreams…
When we race triathlons together, he’s not tethered to me. Instead, I’m his swim/bike/run escort to make sure things run smoothly. In the water, I’m there for reassurance. On land, he doesn’t have any “road driving” experience so his understanding of the rules-of-the-road is limited, especially when his heart rate is up. I play the role of a second brain to keep him from rolling his bike into danger.
As a father, it has always been like this => I put my aspirations to one side to develop him into a better athlete, keep him safe and make sure he’s having fun. Sometimes we make mistakes:
We got lost on our first SwimRun. Sadly, the time cost bumped us off the podium.
I got injured in another race. Our “slowness” was so embarrassing to him he urged me to drop out. I refused. Afterwards, he nearly fired me from the team. A year later, I secured my team position when we returned to the same event and I dragged him to victory.
These real world challenges (lost, hurt, cramping, bonking, personality conflicts under fatigue…) are valuable life skills that we practice together. Regardless of his life path, being able to think clearly under duress will benefit his future self. I don’t need to “teach” any of this. I simply need to chill out and model the behavior, which helps my current self.
Dad’s different on the road.
An Ability To Move Through The World
Outside of the race, there is everything else.
The travel, the time together, figuring out how to move around a new city, how to eat, packing gear… all of the essentials required to live a highly mobile life. A lifestyle I greatly enjoyed from 1990-2010. Again, I don’t need to teach anything. I bring him along for the ride, model the behavior and he learns by osmosis.
Traveling isn’t all he’s learning without much effort. We talk philosophy, and he doesn’t realize we’re doing it. Our time together provides him with a forum for asking questions. He’s always had a lot of questions and I’ve done my best to answer.
A child’s simple questions, if sustained, become a vehicle for helping a young adult decide how they want to be in the world.
Norwegian Children’s Rights in Sport.
You can listen to the two of us talking about racing together here.
Beautiful. This reminds me of my 13-year-old. A few months ago, he asked for a road bike after helping at my friend’s bike shop over the entire summer. His reasoning was simple: “Dad, get me the bike with the discount because you know the owner!” Then we came up with a plan: “We’ll train together in the garage over winter, and when the weather in Poland gets terrible, we can travel somewhere nice and ride outside!” - I think either Spain or Italy will be our first cycling trip together in spring 2025. I am already winning, riding together with him in the garage 3 times a week, not because of the riding but because of what goes around it and the conversations during the actual ride. This is +3-hrs more of my best self shared with him every week ❤️