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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.