Will started his "real" swimming lessons today. By "real", I mean with a teacher in charge and not mommy bobbing him around while singing The Wheels on the Bus and urging him to put his circle face in the water.
The teacher discovered very quickly what I already knew. Will has no fear of the water. Even after finding himself unexpectedly submerged 1-2 feet under, with a sputtering resurface after a quick arm-grab rescue.
It's nice that he is so comfortable in the water, but it's damn scary too. Will's young swimming instructor quickly learned that she had to keep an arm on him at all times. Sitting poolside to watch her demonstrate how arms are supposed to move is not feasible and W
ill would happily slip back into the pool to join her while she was three feet away exaggerating her arm movement to try to get Will to mimic her.
The weeks we spend at our lakeside cottage are going to be with a constant high alert. We have taken a few measures, such as having a metal gate installed on the dock, made it a rule that anytime Will is outside of the cottage he is to be wearing a life jacket (still with the "bib" panel behind his head as a typical life jacket for his age/weight would be a simple vest and I'm sure that Will would not be able to keep his own head up reliably yet), and we have put off "grooming" our shoreline until Will is a better swimmer. Right now our shoreline is very uninviting to swimmers, with is craggy, uneven rocks. We are also going to put off having even fun "splash times" in the water, so he doesn't get the idea that it's at all OK to hang at the water's edge or that he can navigate the rocks to get access to the water.
The teacher discovered very quickly what I already knew. Will has no fear of the water. Even after finding himself unexpectedly submerged 1-2 feet under, with a sputtering resurface after a quick arm-grab rescue.
It's nice that he is so comfortable in the water, but it's damn scary too. Will's young swimming instructor quickly learned that she had to keep an arm on him at all times. Sitting poolside to watch her demonstrate how arms are supposed to move is not feasible and W
ill would happily slip back into the pool to join her while she was three feet away exaggerating her arm movement to try to get Will to mimic her.The weeks we spend at our lakeside cottage are going to be with a constant high alert. We have taken a few measures, such as having a metal gate installed on the dock, made it a rule that anytime Will is outside of the cottage he is to be wearing a life jacket (still with the "bib" panel behind his head as a typical life jacket for his age/weight would be a simple vest and I'm sure that Will would not be able to keep his own head up reliably yet), and we have put off "grooming" our shoreline until Will is a better swimmer. Right now our shoreline is very uninviting to swimmers, with is craggy, uneven rocks. We are also going to put off having even fun "splash times" in the water, so he doesn't get the idea that it's at all OK to hang at the water's edge or that he can navigate the rocks to get access to the water.
Hopefully, after another year or so of 1:1 lessons he will be more of a proper swimmer. We are lucky that our Parks and Rec. department offers therapeutic swimming lessons that are one to one and cost the same as regular swimming lessons, so instead of the 5-7 minutes a child would get in a class of 8 or 10 kids, Will gets an intensive 25 minutes of lesson time. I think we are going to need them.
Here is my lovely, expectant sister and niece demonstrating the dock gate. I haven't seen it in real life yet.
2 comments:
He's doing so great! How awesome that he loves the water so much. Both of my kids have always been pretty hesitant of it (D got braver as he grew up though and enjoys it now).
It's exactly the same in the water--NO FEAR! I'm the one who is terrified. Joe did really well with 1:1 swim lessons, I am sure Will will love them.
What is your plan for Will next year? I am still second guessing our plan (sigh...)
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