We recently started taking our two-year-old to swim lessons. Drowning is the primary cause of accidental death for children ages 1 to 4, a statistic that cuts across all socioeconomic, racial, and geographic lines. So it was past due (in my mind) for our child to start learning how to swim.
Swim lessons went well for the first month. She loved splashing in the water. She even took us dunking her underwater like a champ. The facility where we enrolled her thinks of everything to make kids feel comfortable in the pool: warm water, plenty of water toys and floaties, songs to sing while practicing kicks and blowing bubbles in the water, and stuffed sea creatures hanging from the ceiling to look at so you don’t realize the instructor has placed you on a platform in the middle of the pool.
Then week 5 happened.
Overnight, our daughter went from a budding Michael Phelps to the Wicked Witch of the West. Petrified of the water and screaming at the prospect of getting in the pool. What on earth has caused this? we wondered. We had been taking her to our city pool during the week to practice the skills she was learning, but that had been going well, too. She hadn’t had a scary experience in that pool or even in the bathtub at home. We hadn’t changed our pre-lesson routine of lunch, nap, swimsuit time and snack. Her instructors hadn’t changed. Why was she suddenly terrified of swimming?
Has your kid been afraid of the water? When taking your toddler to swim lessons, do you feel like you’re on a journey through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief?
Denial
Those screams echoing inside this pool facility aren’t my daughter’s. Okay, they are her screams but this isn’t my daughter. My daughter likes swimming. She listens to the instructors, unlike that kid over there who requires bubbles and extra toys to be coaxed into the fun noodle float. Okay, that’s not true right now either, because here comes an extra instructor asking my daughter if she wants to blow bubbles before jumping in. Oh no, my daughter did not just take her feet out of the pool and stomp her way over to the parent bench (while still screaming).
This wetness on my flip-flops? It’s not from my daughter throwing her arms around my calves in a desperate bid to not get in the water. It’s sweat because I’m anxious that my daughter just fled from the pool after being an absolute fish for the past month. Was that a look of disdain from her swim instructor? Nah, couldn’t have been. It was actually a look that said, “Oh. Not another one.” Because my daughter is still shrieking.
Anger
What is the matter with my child?! This lesson is halfway over; why isn’t she in the pool yet? Doesn’t she realize she is wasting money? I didn’t fork over the equivalent of dinner and a movie so she could stay on dry land! She’s grounded when we get home! All right, she’s not grounded because she’s two and that’s not appropriate, but this is a waste of a swim lesson. Not cool.
Bargaining
Okay, child. We’re going to the pool tomorrow evening once Mommy and Daddy are off work, and you will get re-used to the pool come hell or high…water. Look, we bought you a puddle jumper that looks like a watermelon, your current favorite food. No, don’t bite it and yes, you can have real watermelon for dessert tonight if you practice your kicks and blow some bubbles in the water. Can you blow bubbles for a little longer? You need to blow bubbles for a few seconds at a time if you’re going to advance to the next swim level. Yes, you can have more watermelon if you blow more bubbles. Keep kicking! Strong kicks! Lots of splashing! If you splash some more, you can watch Paw Patrol during the car ride home! Now we’re going to practice climbing out of the pool and jumping back in. Yes, you can hold my hands while jumping in. Okay, I’ll hold you on my hip a little longer. Should we try floating on our back—Oh, okay, that was a really loud shriek right next to my eardrum. Maybe we’ll practice floating another time. Hey, if you float—Yes, Mommy will hold you the whole time. If you float, we’ll put some vanilla ice cream on that watermelo—Ow, that was another really loud shriek right next to my eardrum. You want to go back to the wall? Okay. I can’t hear you splashing but it looks like you’re kicking. I’m pretty sure my hearing will return by next weekend’s lesson.
Depression
It has been two weeks of extra practices and rewards, and she’s still petrified of swim lessons. We’ve practiced during the week. We’ve given stickers after we’re done practicing. We powered up before today’s lesson with fruit snacks and orange juice. We had a pep talk on the pool deck before the lesson started: This is where we have fun swimming in the water with our friends. You’re going to listen to your instructor! You’re going to kick big and make big splashes! You’re going to make big scoops with your arms! You can do this! You are strong!
None of that made much of a difference. She sat down at the edge of the pool and stuck her feet in the water. But as soon as the instructor strapped the floatie backpack to her, she realized what was about to go down and fled back to my lap.
My child is going to be sitting out on elementary school pool parties because she can’t swim. She’s going to have to buy adult-sized water wings when she wants to cool off on a summer day in the future. She’s going to have to wear a life jacket any time she goes on a cruise, a canoe trip, a fishing excursion.
Acceptance
Encouraging a toddler to feel secure in their swimming ability is going to take work. It’s going to take time. We’re going to have to progress at her pace, not ours. Pushing her too much with regards to swimming is not fun, but also potentially dangerous. As someone who has been swimming all my life, I’ve forgotten that I was once intimidated by the big, blue pool and the drop-off beyond the shallow end. Plus, what motivates you and me to swim might not work for our children. Husband and I once watched a mom bribe her son with the promise of ice cream after class if he’d get in the pool. “Nope,” he said, and continued to cling to her on the benches.
We had to become more intentional about taking her to the pool to practice. This meant giving up easy after-work evenings of dinners that lead straight into a bedtime routine, and instead of leaving work on time to eat a pre-planned dinner so we could squeeze in a half-hour of swimming before bath and bedtime. We made a point of talking to her positively about her growing awareness and execution of very basic swim skills, and reminding her that she gets to go swimming tomorrow/this weekend/today, and isn’t that exciting?!
Thankfully, our regular mid-week swim evenings are starting to pay off. By the third week of swim lesson scaries, she happily ran to the edge of the pool and stuck her feet in the water when the instructor called her name. She was mostly back in her comfort zone in the water and following the instructor’s requests: kicking big, scooping water in a rudimentary freestyle motion, swimming out to the platform without crying, and genuinely having a good time in the pool.
Learning to swim definitely isn’t a linear process. But she’s becoming more like a fish every week, which makes being around water more enjoyable for all our family.
