How to raise an Olympian: One parent's story

How do you motivate your kids to try to be the best they can be?

It’s a parent’s constant question - and concern. We asked Alison Oleksiak to share her thoughts, as she readied to travel to Rio de Janeiro with her husband Richard to cheer on youngest daughter Penelope as she and her Canadian teammates takes on the world’s best swimmers at the Olympic Games.

“It’s a little surreal, frankly, when you think of your 16-year-old as an Olympian athlete,” Alison Oleksiak said. “We’re all a little shellshocked. That her first senior international event is an Olympics, and not just in the relay but in three other events as well, is - almost as much as her data bills. And they can be pretty big.”

Oh yes. For all her precocity in the pool - she actually earned her spot at April's Olympic trials, two months before turning 16 -- daughter Penny is still a teenager, prone to "doing teenager things," and she’s far from the only achiever in the Oleksiak’s Toronto Beaches neighbourhood household. Brother Jamie is a defenceman with the NHL Dallas Stars, and a former junior Canadian international. Eldest brother Jake played NCAA hockey, and now works in North Carolina. Sister Hayley is a rower on the Northeastern University team in Boston, and Claire is a teacher. Mom Alison, a systems engineer, was a competitive swimmer growing up in Scotland; her husband Richard, a writer, drives Penny to swim practice and sticks around, getting his own two-hour workout in while the baby of the family strokes toward Rio, where she will compete in four events.

Five kids. Five achievers. How did it happen? Resources loom large, of course - money and time management. But there’s much more, including luck. Here’s Alison’s list:

Turn ‘em loose. “We’ve always encouraged them. But frankly, we’ve just always tried to keep them busy. That’s been our main approach.”

Set goals. “There were never any major goals. But they always had near-term goals.”

Not just sports. “Everybody kept busy with sports and a musical instrument (Penny’s was the violin). The girls tried dance and ballet. … You really want to give them a diversity of options - things they can try and then choose later on to keep going with.”

Genes help. “My dad’s in his 80s but he’s still active kayaking around the bay and cycling. I grew up with athletics very much a part of my youth. Dick’s also very athletic, and his father was too growing up before going into the war. Both of us came from that background.”

Make new friends. “For me it was a way of developing a social circle. I didn’t know anyone when I came here (in the late 1980s) - I met a lot of my friends through the kids’ sports.”

Keep good company. “We were pretty hawkish in terms of who they were hanging out with in whatever they were doing. So coaches and teammates and friends were always positive … Each of them had a mentor who was really inspirational to them and were great in terms of helping them develop character.”

Let them decide. “It was never about playing rep or the level. They picked the sport they wanted to do. It was all their call. The one exception to that was Jamie wanted to be a goalie ... My dad kept telling me how expensive goalie equipment would be and the other parents told me there would be more equipment to lug about. I told him he would have to learn to skate first and if he made it to the NHL he could decide to be a goalie then and it was tough to find the best fit, so he went to defence.”

Team up. “Richard’s been doing CrossFit training for years, and Penny started doing it with him when she was 12. She’s big. So are Jamie and my husband, and one of the things they’ve learned when you’re big like that is it’s very important to develop your core. (Trainer) Mags Nicholas has this incredible way of tying the training to how you live your life and it’s all about avoiding the negative and never giving up. People talk about how strong Penny finishes and her fast last leg in the pool, and that’s from Mags. He always says there’s another gear there, you just have to find it.”

Manage expectations. “Organization is definitely key. And also communication. We’ve always been up front with coaches that these are age-group athletes and their (coaching) decisions don’t just impact them but also our family too. (National team coach) Ben (Titley) has been great about it. We spend a lot of time with him going over trying to balance school and all these other things that go with being a teenager.”

Maybe biggest of all, she stresses, is the support they’ve received along the way, including the coaches, trainers, teammates and friends, some of whom will join them on the trip to Rio.

“I know it seems like a cliche but it really did take a village," Oleksiak said. "Especially over the last year."