I know that this may not have anything to do with gifted, but I want to know if anyone else has had a child who screamed through and tried to get away from their first swimming lesson.

Just before going in, my son (4.4) said he didn't want to go to the pool. I asked him why and he said that it wasn't safe.

We live on a river that runs fast and deep over six months of the year and since he was about 6 months old, I've shown him that river and told him that it was a river and it was not safe to go in it; that he doesn't come near it without mommy or daddy.

So looks like that instruction is coming back to bite me in the nether regions...*sigh*

Tomorrow is his second of eight lessons. I'm forcing him to go.

I was sweating like a stuck pig today trying to sit on my hands when he was screaming for me.

were you at our swimming lesson this morning??? I need to mention this is our second session of lessons! He sxreamed the first lesson in the last session too. Btw.. ds is 5 1/2.

This was our first lesson. We live in Oregon, so unless by some freaky reason we are neighbors...

I was lucky to sit next to a woman, (she was a teacher; not swimming teacher, though), who told me that if I let ds scream his way into not coming back tomorrow, that I would probably never get him back into a pool.

So we came home and I wrote him a schedule. He now has a blue sheet of construction paper on our fridge with the numbers 1-8 on it. I wrote "swimming lessons" at the top and "surprise!" at the bottom. In between he has the numbers to cross off as he finishes each lesson.

Since he's such a numbers guy, I'm hoping the appeal of crossing them off to get to the surprise will be a motivating factor when he's feeling less than brave.

I'll tell one of the instructors what he told me about the water not being safe and how I've talked to him about our river.

My DS8 had a great fear of the water at that age, and probably for about the same reasons -- we live on a river too, and so he had heard all about it for years. But he was (and is) a scaredy-cat about a lot of things when he's not familiar with them. We are planning on getting him swimming lessons this year, and he tells me that he doesn't want them and seems afraid, even though he likes to go to the rec center pool and work his way around the edges, holding on. We shall see how it goes.

I would totally agree with this. Something just this spring clicked with my 10 year old who has been super slow to do everything in the water, and warm pool lessons private or with a very small group definitely helped (we've done both). Now I would feel comfortable sending him to a pool or beach party.

My ds has been in the pool at least a few times a year since infancy and loved it. However, he was always "in control" (i.e., playing on the steps with an inner tube around his waist). We sensed that he had some anxieties because he really resisted when we encouraged him to stretch his comfort zone.

At age 4, we put him in a beginning swimming class for 4 year olds. He clung to the side of the pool and refused to do anything. So at 5, I put him in the Mom/Tot swim class where I could get in the pool with him. In 3 feet of water, his shorts weren't even wet after 10 minutes. Why? He was climbing all over my head and shoulders, screaming at the top of his lungs, and grabbing everything (my hair, the straps holding up my suit, etc) in an full-blown panic. We went to the pool every day last summer, and there were several days that I expected us to get kicked out of class. (His screaming not only completely disrupted our class, but the classes at the other end of an outdoor Olympic-size pool.) It was awful! But we did make progress. The good news? We went to the pool this summer, and it's already sooo much better than last year. He's 6, and we're doing the Mom/Tot class again this summer (---ability grouping at its finest!:) ). My hope is that he will be ready for a group class without me by next summer.

There is hope! I think it takes logging lots and lots and lots of pool hours and continually but gently stretching his comfort zone, but it will be so worth it. My son overcoming his fear and having to work hard at something are life lessons that are absolutely invaluable.

My gifted kids can be very sensitive and thinks about things in bigger ways than we might expect, then needs my help to deal with it. The maturity to interpret can be behind the intellect.

As a preschooler, my son put together an idea that since our house was old and a bit worn out it might get explosed like the one in the kids construction video.

I know it sounds crazy, but toddler pool helped my son. When he was about 4 and refused to do anything with pool, we suggested him to go in the toddler pool, or warm pool on lap. We also spend lot of time just walking around the pool. After few days, he asked if he can go in the BIG pool. We also took him to pool with his friends. In the beginning he just sat on the step and watched them. I would second the private lesson; try to find someone your son will feel comfortable with. There are many books for kids which talk about water fear, which might help too.

From my personal experience I would suggest not pushing him to go in until he is ready. My son is now 6 and it is hard to get him out from the pool.

Good Luck!!

okay...I couldn't agree MORE with waiting until the child is ready! At 4 and 5, my now 9 year old WOULD NOT let anyone touch her in the pool for lessons. She didn't throw a fit, just wouldn't comply with anyone touching her. SHE had to be in control. The teachers just played with her in the water. By the end of age 5, she was willing to put her head under for a prize...but only if SHE did it. And she got the prize from me! We made a big thing out of her small improvements. At 6, she still wasn't that big on going under, but with goggles, she was willing...AND she HAD to be in the small pool. The big pool had an area that was over her head and it made her nervous to leave the wall. The teacher realized this, and put her in th 3 ft pool that was even all around. She immediately swam. Once she realized that she had fun swimming, her fears became less and less.

The more fun the pool was, the less worried she was.
Last summer, at 8, she could jump in the deep end and touch the bottom of the pool. She can swim and back float. She STILL has trouble going under...and a good fitting pair of goggles is a must. She always takes them off and dries them every few minutes...but, I know that this too shall pass! WAIT until he is ready. Bring him to watch other happy kids swimming. Tell him that he can join the some day, when he is older. Or try restricting him to only being allowed to use a floaty...He might try to prove you wrong.

In any case, if he sees other children having fun. And You maybe have fun...he might chose to join you on his own free will. Completely ignore him!

The completely ignoring thing worked for my daughter at 5. She was scared to death of dogs...big and small. So, we visited a pet store. DH and younger daughter, and I made such a fuss over this little puppy...OH! IT's soooo cute! Can I hold it?! Oh! We just LOVE him!...Anytime DD5 talked we ignored her for the puppy. I swear...20 minutes later, she asked to hold it!

Try it! Its crazy...but it works...with swimming, it won't be 20 minutes...maybe more like 6 weeks, but when he feels like he is missing out...he will want to join too!

MON - the 'pun' caught my eye - when you say push, do you mean verbally or physically?

Either way, it's interesting the difference between a frightened child and a screaming child - some overlap, but not much, yes?

Smiles,
Grinity

Today's lesson was much better!

I told him that they are teaching him water safety when he told me the water wasn't safe. I could see him turning that one around in his head! LOL Then I said that if he's scared, he needs to use his words (remember that?)to tell the teacher, not screaming, because they don't understand why he's screaming.

He didn't scream hardly at all and I did hear him proclaiming loudly a few times he was scared.

When he got out of the water to go home, I told him he was brave. He said he wasn't because he was crying. He seemed to understand me when I told him being brave means doing something you need to do even if you're scared.

The swimming chart I made so he could cross off each lesson is working him toward the goal of the surprise at the end of the eighth lesson, so I think that's helped too.

I'm optimistic that he will get better and better each time.

If he had been worse today, that would have been the last lesson for him for a while.

YAY for success!


I am so impressed with how you turn the situation to fit exactly the way his mind works. Keep up the good work, Mom!

I remember last summer when ds was really struggling. We had some good days where he stretched himself. He would come out of the pool grinning from ear to ear. I used every opportunity to reinforce that the reason he felt so good was that he was that he did something that was not easy for him. He's one who never wants to venture outside his comfort zone, so this was a way to try to make a point that could be generalized to other situations too. Your comment about "being brave means doing something you need to do even if you're scared" (which I love, BTW!) just reminded me of that.

I am SO glad that the second day was better for you guys :-) Great job of turning a situation around! We would go to the pool and DS8 was always very sensitive and scared about putting his face under even though he LOVED going to the pool. I would bring up talk about lessons through the years and he would get very stressed out.

This year is another story - he has a habit of learning things out of order (go figure) and on a recent trip to the Florida Keys, he learned how to snorkle (while he laid on top of a floaty)..so now he is gangbusters to learn how to swim. We decided to go with a private instructor who has experience working with sensitive kids and she focuses on working through the fear and building up the confidence. I hope all the rest of the lessons go super smoothly for you guys!!

Today was lesson #5 of 8.

Even though ds isn't screaming, and is using his "words" to express his fears, he seems to be just biding his time in the pool. Every time they go to dip him (to teach holding his breath), he comes up crying. The first time it was because he breathed in water, today it was because his eyes got water in them.

*sigh*

I told him to listen to directions. I'm not entirely sure he is. And if he is, maybe he is interpreting it differently somehow?

Our pool has a sign-up day starting tomorrow for more lessons. Each eight lessons are $50 (a lot of money for us).

My thought is it's time to let him finish out his existing lessons and then take him to the pool to play with me (and/or) his dad this summer.

Maybe next year, he will be less sensitive to water in his ears, eyes, and nose?

(BTW: He has had sensitivity to sound (he covers his ears frequently) and water (on his head; as in shampooing) since he was a baby.

Yeah, you're probably on the right track with some lessons and mostly play-time in the water, he is pretty young still, right? You don't want him to hate the water, if the lessons are only so-so and go on too long.

I got EJ (5) goggles. His fear was if water got in his eyes he would drown (no clue where that came from as he had ALWAYS hated water from birth). The goggles worked wonders for us. He is now a water bug!!

We did 3 series of swim lessons with DS (just turned 4) over the last several years and I can honestly say that they had no impact whatsoever until this most recent time. This time he had spontaneously told me he wanted to learn to swim before we signed him up. He likes watching ocean animal videos and I had off-hand mentioned last winter how fun it will be to go snorkeling once he's a proficient swimmer. So several times this spring he spontaneously brought up he wanted to learn to swim, and we found a very child oriented swim class series (the kind with buckets of toys in the change area, toys in use in the lessons, songs, etc). A better class than we've been to before.

All of our experiences have been mommy&me type ones, I wouldn't have been comfortable with anything else because DSs response to having his head go under is to freeze and not try to help himself. Followed by crying which leads to breathing in water. All within the space of seconds.

Factors helping him learn to swim (he amazed me by actually learning to swim over the 10 sessions this time), were the pool being extra warm (previous times he's gotten cold quickly), and well fitted flotation devices that he'll actually agree to wear (sinks under without them leading to panic). His own motivation probably tops the list.

A factor that prevented him learning before was his personal head/hair sensitivity so that he will not wear goggles, hates to get his chin or above wet, doesn't like water in his nose, ears, etc (let alone hair combing or hats). Another issue was over-thinking, a fear of drowning that caused him to feel like he might be drowning whenever he got water in his nose or mouth. Perfectionism and accompanying easy frustration were real impediments also. I didn't know of any way to address those negative factors, it was more his motivation and the pool being so wonderfully warm, that got him past them.

He still found it frightening when the instructor would "swim" him way down to the bottom of the pool, even the last class was complaining loudly -- but not sputtering as he was at the beginning, so he learned to keep his mouth closed while under. Shorter depths like just head in now cause him no problems, he even comes up smiling sometimes. And he can float on his back without panicking, well at least sometimes. I feel SO much more comfortable after this set of lessons about him at public pools, and still would not trust him an inch around a real river.

Here's a link to the unique shark float he has http://www.swimfin.co.uk/ But I bought ours on amazon. The only one he's ever agreed to wear. I can't find a link for the fins we have, they are soft or flexible in comparison to most. DS needs both the float and the fins to swim on his own. It's worth all the floaty stuff to get him swimming independently because now he realizes he can and that itself will be motivating to pay attention to more instruction later on.

Polly

We got information on swim lessons and told DS8 that we were going to have him do it this summer, and he literally went almost catatonic on us. He freaked out so much that he was just curled up in a ball and would not move any more than his eyeballs when I kept asking him what was wrong. I finally got through to him and found out that someone had told him that they throw you into 12 feet of water at swim lessons. Even knowing that the pool isn't 12 feet deep, he somehow still believed this. We have settled on having DD5 do lessons first and he will go and watch her and see how it goes. This should have the advantage that he will then have to show his sister that he can do it too.

I'm glad things are going better for your DS. My DS7 also has some fears of swimming, and I think this wasn't helped by some young instructors he's had who he could manipulate into thinking he was terrified. He is a kid who could do more, but really needed the "pushing". Once he found that he could get out of doing some of the more unpleasant things, I think he manipulated the situation. (I'm not really a heartless and cruel mom, I just know my kid.)

So, after about 3 years of being a polliwog (he doesn't even care that he's with 3 year olds), we are going for private lessons starting next week. I'll let you know how it goes.

We live out in California and the "drowning season" has started. We start hearing about kids who drown in their backyard pool. It's so sad and generally preventable.
I think, ideally, all children would learn how to swim.
Private lessons are usually the most efficient way to get them swimming. My 6 year old was terrified of swimming- we started at 3/4 years old and he would not get in the pool with me or the instructor! They finally gave us our money back for the lessons, saying they "never" had to do that before.
Eventually we got him to try a little bit. Fast forward 2 years- this weekend he won 3 medals and the 6-U boys high point trophy on the swim team! He's so excited. So keep chipping away at swimming.

We live in Florida, the state with the most drownings per capita (think lots of pools and lots of beaches). We never wanted to do the "safe start" system, where they basically do 10 minutes daily and teach very young infants to learn to float. We wanted to wait until they were old enough to lear to swim properly. We did private lessons for each of our three kids and think it is the only way to go, if it is at all possible for you financially.

Each of my kids did three or four weeks of private lessons (four days of 30 minutes each) the summer that they turned three. ALL of them screamed; they all have HATED to be taught to float on their back, and they cry while swimming to the wall. My daughter probably cried the most, and wouldn't stop kicking when she was on her back, so it took her a long time to figure out the back float. That said, at the end of the lesson, if you asked her if she had fun, she would usually (not always) say yes.

By the end of the summer that they turned three, my older two kids were good swimmers (my daughter, who cried the most, was the best). She was an absolute fish by the summer that she turned four. Before she turned four, she could dive to the bottom of a 10 foot diving well to pick up a dive toy, and was swimming at her summer camp with the 7/8 year olds because she was the only younger kid that passed the test to swim in the big pool. Now, at 4 1/2, she can swim all four strokes (though her breast stroke and butterfly arms are marginal), and is COMPLETELY independent in the water (though of course we still watch her like a hawk).

Anyway, my point is that she was my biggest cryer, but she has no memory of it and we (and she!) absolutely love that she is such a strong swimmer at such a young age. I am not a big believer in letting my kids cry or forcing them to do things that they think they don't want to do, but I have to say that in this case the results speak for themselves. They love the water and are great swimmers.

It's odd, but I don't remember screaming about the back-floating thing, although my mother might tell differently if she were here, as I have a lousy memory of my childhood. I almost drowned when I was 8, and had to be rescued from the Green River in Utah, and my mother took me to swimming lessons (beginner) for three years after that. I never did learn to float on my back, because every time my feet went out from under me, I panicked. But I don't remember screaming about it. Maybe I just blocked that part out.

Tomorrow is the last lesson. And I do mean last (for this year, anyway).

He's no longer screaming, as I said, but now his perfectionism has kicked in. He cries at the end of the class because he can't do it. I keep telling him to "do your best" and we are okay with that, but he seems not to understand that he isn't going to be an Olympic-quality swimmer after eight lessons.

I suppose I need to step back and give it a break this year. I hope next summer he is more mature and that will make a difference.

We had swim classes for ds7 when he was just 18 months and then again at 3. I don't know if they helped or not. He went through a phase of being scared to put his face in the water between 3 and 4. By 5 he was over it and could go underwater. His swimming skills at this point are very basic. I had lessons at the 'Y' wen I was 6 and 7 and am a ok swimmer. I think lessons can be very efficient.

My ds7 decided he does not want formal lessons this summer so we are taking the slow road -- "Mommy and Daddy lessons" I think trust is a big issue for him since he had a camp counselor force him to a pool when he wasn't ready (at 4). I think it helps him to feel more secure because we jointly decide on what to learn and how.

like homeschooling/unschooling swimming we take a very relaxed, chil-led approach. I hope this will be the summer when everything clicks and he gets really good at it. It will give me peace of mind and he will have more fun.


Ametrine - How much time does your ds get to spend in a pool without lessons being involved?

In any case, it sounds like you have made a lot of progress even since the very first lesson! Take heart. As the other posts have said, sometimes it just takes a while.
Good luck

Thanks~

He hasn't had opportunity to spend any time in a regular pool, having only a "kiddie" plastic one on our deck. We have decided to spend a few days this summer at the pool with him, just to have fun. I think you're right about the forcing before ready becoming a trust issue. We don't want that happening to ds.

Speaking of forcing...today the last lesson included a trip down the waterslide. My son went up the ladder to go down. The instructor picked him up and placed him on the slide and down he went...face first into the water. He came up screaming because water went up his nose and into his eyes.

On the way home, I asked him if he wanted to go down the slide and he said no, that he changed his mind. I think the instructor didn't realize that he had decided it was too scary (it is loud) and set him down anyway. I was disappointed to see that the child before him (shorter) was allowed to go down on an instructor's lap. With my son's fear of water up his nose and his history of screaming over it, what were they thinking?

I blame myself also...I saw him on his way to the slide and by the time I got there, he was already up and in the line next to go.

No more lessons this year!