Last year I enrolled Maya in swim lessons. She was about eight months old and I'd heard somewhere that the earlier you introduce babies to swimming the less fearful they would be of the water.
At our first lesson Maya clung to me. She was terrified of the pool. My instinct was to introduce her slowly to the water. But the swim instructor believed, quite vocally, that babies needed to be pushed into swimming concepts as quickly as possible in order for them to become comfortable in the water as soon as possible. His methods only made Maya even more fearful of the water. She would cry throughout the lesson. Maya didn't enjoy the lessons and neither did I. I ended the lessons early.
Recently, I decided to try swim lessons again, but at a different swim school. I found a centre that offered a refund if you are not happy with their lessons and thought it was a safe bet to try.
Our first lesson I had to drag Maya into the water with me. She fought hard not to go in. But I kept her close to me. This instructor could see that Maya needed to be close to me and structured the lesson accordingly. She introduced fun tasks for all the children to complete and while Maya stayed close by my side, she really enjoyed the activities. At the end of the class I had to drag her back out of the pool. She wanted to stay! It was a fun lesson and the children were not forced to do things they weren't comfortable with.
Maya now LOVES swimming. Each week she gets more and more confident to try new things. And there have even been a couple of moments were she has swum briefly all on her own.
There are still things she does not like to do but she is never forced to do them. Instead she is encouraged to give them a go to the best of her ability. This way she usually has a go and each week she gets more comfortable with the tasks.
Swimming lessons are now my favourite time of the week. And I think Maya feels the exact same way.
4 comments:
Hmmm.. all these stories about opinionated kids swimming teachers make me happy that I never took Katya to a swimming lesson. She loves swimming pools. We recently started going to the Family Swimming Session on Monday at the closest swimming pool and seem to end up spending lots of time in the water (the record so far is 2 hours) with almost no other people in the pool
The scary thing is that the first instructor was recommended to me. I have no idea how someone could approve of his teaching methods.
Now I do think swimming lessons can be useful after having a good experience with a good instructor. The instructor is already teaching Maya basic swimming concepts but in a fun way.
The other good thing about the new swim school is that your swim lessons entitle you to use the pool for the rest of the day. The longest we've stayed is also 2 hours. After her swimming lesson I take Maya to the toddler pool and she loves it.
Jude was terrified of his swimming instructor, too and completely freaked out. It was awful to see him so distressed, but the other students in the class loved that same instructor. I guess every child is different.
I used to be an AustSwim instructor so I should be able to teach him myself, I just thought it would be better if it was a stranger and his mum was there to support him, but now I'm not sure.
But he loves swimming and water slides, so I have been thinking about finding a new swim school and trying again.
It's been a fantastic experience since finding a good swim school with a great instructor. So I do highly recommend doing swim lessons now. Perhaps you can even go have a look at some swim centres and check out what the instructors are doing before booking in for lessons?
I also enjoy meeting up with other mums each week and we go to the toddler pools afterwards for a chat while the kids play.
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