As someone who is afraid of water, does not tolerate getting her face wet, and is not a strong swimmer, teaching E to be comfortable around water is a pretty high priority. Teaching him to swim is a goal too, but we’ll start with baby steps.
We have plans to spend some time this winter with some formal lessons, but for now we’re going to try some one offs to slowly introduce things. Which is what we did a few weekends ago. I’m pretty sure that E’s favorite part was the trucks they had to play with before the lesson, but hey, I’ll take anything that gives him good associations with the pool!
Obviously Tom will be in charge of being in the pool with him for all lessons. I’m pretty sure everyone would pick the water polo player over the one who screams if you even think about splashing anywhere near her, but luckily he enjoys it.
The lesson was mostly just floating around on Tom’s arms, a little bit of getting used to water on his face, and a few tears. But overall I think it went okay.
So hopefully in a few years we’ll be able to say that E takes after Tom in the swimming department. And then we can play in a sprinkler outside without E freaking out, crying, and running away. We can dream!
So I’ve always felt a little bad about how poor my swimming skills are. To be fair, I’ve never really enjoyed the water, I don’t want to get my face or hair wet, and so I don’t mind that I can’t swim very well. But it’s still a bit embarrassing (especially since my best friend, husband and both parents are life guard level swimmers). Now that I have children, though, it’s come to the forefront again.
One, because I don’t feel like I can swim strong enough to save a drowning child, which means they need to learn how to swim ASAP. And two, because watching my children has made me realize that children really may just be born predisposed to loving water or not. And it makes me feel better about myself - because maybe it’s not all my fault.