Sink or Swim
I may have a huge challenge coming up. I may have to assert myself with strangers. Here's the story:
Katie is in a swimming class. She is in the "starter" class for 3-5 year olds. The point of the class is to get the kids more used to being in the water and get them comfortable with putting their faces in and with going under the water. The pool is only three feet deep. Katie loves it. I think it is a good class for her and am glad to see her excited about it.
The next level class is a lot more hardcore. In the first week of class (class meets every day Monday through Thursday) the kids were strapped into life jackets and marched over to the big pool several times. They have gone down the big blue slide that swooshes you all around and spits you out. They have gone down the shorter slides that shoot you out into deeper water. They have jumped off the diving boards into really deep water.
Katie is very focused on the idea of graduating into the "big kid swimming class". She is pretty timid of water and hates to get water in her face, especially her eyes. She is trying to overcome this. She practices trying to put her head under water during every bath. She can often be seen splashing water into her eyes to get used to "water eyes". She has her eyes on the prize!
The problem is that in the "big kid swimming class" there is no allowance for timidity. Kids that don't want to jump off the diving board are nudged off. Kids that are genuinely afraid to jump off are pushed. Kids that refuse, screaming in terror, are picked up and thrown off. This is happening in full view of the approving, but embarrased parents.
OK, I can see the argument for this approach. A kid that is scared to jump into the water will never overcome the fear if they never jump in. In theory, the timid child will be pushed in the water, realize that nothing bad happened, and will be less scared next time. This is an age-old way to teach kids to swim. Only I think it doesn't work very well. If it did work, then why are the same kids being peeled off the edge of the slide, screaming bloody murder, day after day? And even if it works, at what price? To me, learning to swim is not important enough to merit being traumatized day after day.
So what to do? I could find a class somewhere else where these tactics are not used. Then, when Katie has picked up some swimming skills, we can go back to this pool and she can do the "big kid" things she is so excited about.
But maybe I can't find another class that we can afford, that works for our schedule and that I'm confident is better. I could tell Katie that we won't be enrolling in the next level class. We will be done with swimming classes this year once she has gotten all she can get from the starter class. I don't want to do that. It would break her heart.
My last option is to talk with the pool manager and the instructor for the Level 1 class. I will have to make it clear that I will not tolerate anyone trying to force Katie to do things in class that she isn't willing to do. And then I will have to watch the classes (I already do that), prepared to jump up and start yelling if someone starts pushing my kid off the diving board. I should be able to do this. I should have the ferocity of a lioness if someone is trying to push my baby off a diving board, but honestly the thought is pretty scary. Maybe as scary as jumping off the high dive into water thirteen feet deep.
Katie is in a swimming class. She is in the "starter" class for 3-5 year olds. The point of the class is to get the kids more used to being in the water and get them comfortable with putting their faces in and with going under the water. The pool is only three feet deep. Katie loves it. I think it is a good class for her and am glad to see her excited about it.
The next level class is a lot more hardcore. In the first week of class (class meets every day Monday through Thursday) the kids were strapped into life jackets and marched over to the big pool several times. They have gone down the big blue slide that swooshes you all around and spits you out. They have gone down the shorter slides that shoot you out into deeper water. They have jumped off the diving boards into really deep water.
Katie is very focused on the idea of graduating into the "big kid swimming class". She is pretty timid of water and hates to get water in her face, especially her eyes. She is trying to overcome this. She practices trying to put her head under water during every bath. She can often be seen splashing water into her eyes to get used to "water eyes". She has her eyes on the prize!
The problem is that in the "big kid swimming class" there is no allowance for timidity. Kids that don't want to jump off the diving board are nudged off. Kids that are genuinely afraid to jump off are pushed. Kids that refuse, screaming in terror, are picked up and thrown off. This is happening in full view of the approving, but embarrased parents.
OK, I can see the argument for this approach. A kid that is scared to jump into the water will never overcome the fear if they never jump in. In theory, the timid child will be pushed in the water, realize that nothing bad happened, and will be less scared next time. This is an age-old way to teach kids to swim. Only I think it doesn't work very well. If it did work, then why are the same kids being peeled off the edge of the slide, screaming bloody murder, day after day? And even if it works, at what price? To me, learning to swim is not important enough to merit being traumatized day after day.
So what to do? I could find a class somewhere else where these tactics are not used. Then, when Katie has picked up some swimming skills, we can go back to this pool and she can do the "big kid" things she is so excited about.
But maybe I can't find another class that we can afford, that works for our schedule and that I'm confident is better. I could tell Katie that we won't be enrolling in the next level class. We will be done with swimming classes this year once she has gotten all she can get from the starter class. I don't want to do that. It would break her heart.
My last option is to talk with the pool manager and the instructor for the Level 1 class. I will have to make it clear that I will not tolerate anyone trying to force Katie to do things in class that she isn't willing to do. And then I will have to watch the classes (I already do that), prepared to jump up and start yelling if someone starts pushing my kid off the diving board. I should be able to do this. I should have the ferocity of a lioness if someone is trying to push my baby off a diving board, but honestly the thought is pretty scary. Maybe as scary as jumping off the high dive into water thirteen feet deep.
posted by Cindy at 10:51 PM
2 Comments:
That's terrible!! If it was me, I'd pull her out after this class is over, and go again next year, or whenever she feels ,more comfortable. What does she think of all that stuff? Does the thought of it scare her? Those kinds of things could really mess a kid up!! Good luck.
Katie has not been aware of most of it, because she has been in the little pool, while all of the screaming has gone on in the big pool. She did witness some of that sort of thing, and needed some reassurance that she wouldn't have to do anything she didn't want to. Also, she wanted to know why that girl's mother would let this happen. I told her that different parents have different ideas about these things, and it was fine with this mother, just not fine with me. She seemed ok with that.
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