So I’ve always felt a little bad about how poor my swimming skills are. To be fair, I’ve never really enjoyed the water, I don’t want to get my face or hair wet, and so I don’t mind that I can’t swim very well. But it’s still a bit embarrassing (especially since my best friend, husband and both parents are life guard level swimmers). Now that I have children, though, it’s come to the forefront again.
One, because I don’t feel like I can swim strong enough to save a drowning child, which means they need to learn how to swim ASAP. And two, because watching my children has made me realize that children really may just be born predisposed to loving water or not. And it makes me feel better about myself - because maybe it’s not all my fault.
We definitely have one child that takes after Tom - he’ll dunk his face in water, he’s ready to learn how to swim, and I can tell that it won’t take much effort to get him there. And we have one child that takes after me - doesn’t want his face wet, refuses to put it under water, won’t blow bubbles in the water, and most of the time just refuses to do anything related to learning how to swim. Ah yes, that’s me. It’s not that I never had swim lessons - I had YEARS of them. But they couldn’t break through my combination of stubbornness and fear/avoidance of the water.
Knowing that, I’ve decided to get a little more serious about swim lessons for our children. Sure, we’ve done the popular swim school nearby, but I honestly wasn’t that impressed. The classes were big and individualized attention wasn’t there, and while it might work for some children, I knew it would never be enough for a kid that has my predisposition towards swimming.
So I found a private swim teacher in a nearby town, one who has years and years of experience. She’s well aware of the hesitancies we’re trying to overcome, and that we fully expect this to be a long process without overnight improvement. I told her if she could even get him in the pool on the first day, I’d be floored. Expectations were low.
And? She’s a miracle worker. Not only did he get in the pool, but she got him blowing bubbles, floating, kicking, doing it all. He still complains, tries to say no, and sometimes requires a parent to literally drop him into her arms in the pool, but I can see him learning. I can see the progress and it’s amazing. I think he even likes it too, except when he’s actually there haha.
He still doesn’t want to put his face in the water, and avoids it at all costs. His teacher is pretty confident that they day he does put his face in the water, he’ll swim across the pool. Apparently he has both my fear and Tom’s natural ability! We’ll hope that the ability wins out eventually. Either way, I feel good about the progress we’ve made this summer, and feel like we’re on the right path to make sure that all our children will be strong swimmers some day.
And in the meantime, we’re doing our own exposure therapy at home. A total spur of the moment purchase has turned into our favorite summer toy - our very own water slide! Both kids love it, and will throw themselves headfirst down the slide into the pool at the bottom. Splashes, wet faces and all.
