Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy how to get DS7 to learn to swim?

Thanks so much for this! He is terrified of drowning, choking, not being able to see, of someone not seeing him struggling in the water. It makes me so sad when he tells me about his fears! I've had many talks with him along the lines, "Have I (or DH) ever let anything bad happen to you? We are there with you in the pool and we would never let anything bad happen to you.", etc. He trusts us, he just doesn't trust that the water can remain stable enough that someone could get to him if he needed help. (He acknowledges that tidal waves and storms don't happen in indoor pools - he's knows it's irrational - he just can't get past it!)

We would have to join a local gym to get regular access to a pool. I think it would be worth it. He could go in regularly and just hang out (and my 3 year old would enjoy it as well - no fears for her so far).

No problem!

Your story reminds me of my story with my DS7.

His big block was getting his face wet, which pretty much shut the idea of swimming down.

We did group lessons. We did individual lessons. We tried different instructors.

After a few weeks, this one instructor told me "I'm going to ask him to jump into the water. He'll probably get mad afterwards."

He jumped. He declared "THAT. WAS. AWESOME!!!" And thus began actual swimming. Six months later I still get giddy about him splashing around in the water with his friends.

I don't know when or how that will happen for you. Maybe it's not with this instructor or during this session. But just keep bringing him to the water and giving him the right to choose when he takes that big leap.

This is my son as well, though we held off on lessons the last few years because he hated them so and wasn't improving. At this point, he says he doesn't want to go swimming with friends/at camps because it's embarrassing to him that he can't swim. He also claims that it's boring exercise, though I suspect fears. I am glad that your son finally got through it! We are planning (another round of) private lessons soon.

I'll be another to say that goggles were KEY for both of my kids. Also, this is advised against by many, but for my more anxious child, swimming in a life vest helped acclimate her to the idea of deeper water and understand how her body worked in water.

BTW, my 5yo still hates having his hair washed but is an amazing swimmer. (He even swims butterfly. *I* can't swim butterfly.) Don't ask me how that works!!

Our DD had the same issues with getting water in her face, so I checked with DW, and she traces the solution back to a water park visit where I basically placed an actively-resisting DD4 on the top of the kiddie water slide and pushed. DD sat up at the bottom, recovered from her shock, then declared, "That was FUN!", and the rest, as they say, is history. She worked her way gradually up to swimming in pretty normal stages after that. And in the meantime, the faces she would make as she tried to turn away from the spray at the bottom of the water slides were pretty amusing.

As it has been said metaphorically on this site, sometimes these kids need a push to get over that hump. Well, sometimes they need a physical push as well.

ITA with mon. I have seen some kids (not mine) at the local pool who really surprised me with their lack of ability to self rescue. I have seen kids panicking and on the verge of trouble in a life vest in the shallow end (ETA: our local pool is bad about allowing kids to wear life vests that are too big and not correctly fastened).

BTW, even with two kids who are now good swimmers, we always experience a little fear/anxiety at the start of each new swim season. They have to reacclimate and find their swimming feet again. I always forget.

I think that MoN's experience and advice (just above, especially) is one to bear in mind.

After DD had a SINGLE traumatizing experience in a "water babies" class my DD refused swim lessons for MANY years.

This is something of a long story, but the instructors pressured ME to do things that I knew that my 14mo DD was uncomfortable with and terrified by... and I relented when they assured me that "they all scream like that" and that it would be "fine" and she just needed to kind of, I don't know... move through (?) the 'terror' phase of things?

I can still remember arguing with the instructors and being APPALLED that one of them shoved DD's head under the water. I can still recall her wounded, betrayed look directed at ME. She remembered, too-- the next class, she PUMMELED me and refused to allow me to even take her into the pool. She turned into 19 pounds of squirming, scratching, frantic and determined baby. This was repeated at regular intervals until she was about four-- she didn't want ANY person near her if she was even in a wading pool in the back yard. For her to get into the water, you had to be about twenty feet away from her.

Anyway-- my point is this-- there is a danger in pushing HG+ kids because of their prodigious memories and way of processing the world. My DD did NOT "get over" it the way a typical child might have. I certainly saw that the other children in the class seemed to recover from their dunkings... but my child was terrified of drowning. Yes-- at 14mo. I knew that she wasn't just afraid of the unfamiliar sensation, but of the DANGER that she could see the environment presented.

We didn't put her back into lessons until she was five, nearly six. Even so, we put her in semi-private lessons with an instructor much like MoN. We were VERY choosy about instructors-- DD had to truly trust the person or she wouldn't even get in the pool, and that lasted until she was swimming at competitive levels when she was 8-9yo.

I did learn something important about my daughter from this incident, though-- pushing her when she is terrified is a losing proposition. Find out WHAT she is afraid of first, and reason with her. If she can't be reasoned with, think carefully about whether or not this is really your hill to die on, so to speak. For a blood draw when she was two-- yeah, it was worth it. For a chest x-ray at 18mo, similarly-- had to be done. But swimming? Nah. Our lifestyle didn't make that one completely imperative.

I coaxed my DD into getting her face wet in the bath in a relaxed setting instead of a high sensory overload and stressor environment like a swimming pool. Baby steps, confidence building and an emphasis on fun helped my DD.

Another thing that I think adds to the stress of an indoor pool environment, at least, are the acoustics - lots of very loud echoing voices and cries. This isn't going to help a child with sensory issues feel relaxed at all.