While Boy-o is at school on Tuesday's, Girlio and I have started her first swimming lessons. Now - I'm pretty relaxed about the business of swimming "lessons" for the 15 month old set. For me, it's mostly about getting your child introduced to the water, playing around, trying out a float or two, playing with some water toys. For some folks, however, the business of toddler swimming lessons is quite serious. They undertake it with such zeal it appears as though they might expect their child to be the next Michael Phelps within the year (pot dabbling notwithstanding, natch). Simmer down folks. They're toddlers. Pretty sure they can't yet be recruited for the Olympic team.
And our swimming instructor this go round seems quite intent on the business of dunking children. A lot. Yes, yes, I know that they say that the more you get your babies used to dunking the less the more they get used to it, etc. blah etc. blah. And I can get behind a dunk or two. But every song, every game we underake in this half hour swim lesson results in one or multiple dunks or water face plants of some variety. And my Girlio, she does not like the dunks. Not one bit. So each lesson, we try it once and if she doesn't want to do anymore, we don't do anymore. It's simple enough for me. She has years and years of swimming lessons ahead of her to put her face in the water. I'm not going to make her cry her first go round because some 20 year old swim instructor thinks I should. Because I think it's much more important for her to learn to enjoy and feel comfortable in the water than to feel anxious that I'm going to stick her head under water every five seconds. And the instructor doesn't seem to really appreciate my perspective.
Every class, she creates a water fountain with a hose that the kids are supposed to swim through, and if the parents don't put them 'through' the stream of water, she'll raise it so the kids (and parents) get splashed. It's really annoying on a couple of levels. 1) I should get to say when and whether my kid gets her face splashed or dunked, and 2) I really don't appreciate getting my face splashed, my hair soaked, and my glasses all mucky (particularly by someone other than my child!). This is my kids' swimming lesson, not mine. So - after a few times through the hose, we 'accidentally' splashed her back. Ooooooooops. Sorry. Were you trying to stay dry?
And then, I guess because there are a few parent dunk resisters, the instructor went through kid by kid, trying to lift them and dunk them back to their parents. Well, my Girlio, after watching her do this to a couple of kids, got lifted up for her turn, stuck her face in the face of that instructor and said her loudest, boomiest, sternest baby voice: "NOOOOOO!" Every eye in the pool turned to look as the instructor handed her right back to me.
That's my girl
Print this. Quit the class. In person. And when asked why, hand it to them.
ReplyDeleteMy god.
Yeah- it was my mistake for handing her over to the instructor in the first place. Next time I'll just say no thanks and let her know why. I think I need to take a more direct approach... I wonder if she's ever been given feedback before?
ReplyDeletesee your experience is why i didn't do baby swim lessons. during the summer i spend a lot of time lake side in Maine or down the New Jersey shore so i wanted to take my son to the class that gets them used to the water (its like for 6 - 18 months here) and my son's dr suggested i didn't do it because of the dunking and once i thought about it made sense. i figure in 3 months when my son is 18 months old well start going to the class that actually teach swimming
ReplyDeleteluckily this past summer we learned that he loved the water and in the process dunked himself a few times
It's bizarre that dunking a baby's head under water against her will is "teaching" while doing the same repeatedly to an adult could be construed as an assault.
ReplyDeleteThat's crazy. And it doesn't matter if they do it at that age or not because Erik took a few baby swimming classes and when he took his first no-parents class at age 3, it took him and all but one of the other kids in the class almost the whole 8 weeks just to put their faces in the water. Once he did it he loved it, but he didn't want to, despite having been dunked repeatedly as a baby (but not as repeatedly as you described. I think it was only a couple of times per class and we'd do it sometimes when we went swimming.)
ReplyDeletecrap instructor. We have been taking L to lessons since 9 months or so... and it is really about your own level of comfort etc. Now, at 2.5 she's ok with the dunks. But it did take that long....
ReplyDeleteDunking doesn't mean they'll like it and get used to it. Riley still hates going under and was dunked in her previous class repeatedly. I think they'll realize when they're okay with it and really it should be about becoming comfortable in the water first. Even now in Riley's class for 3-5 year olds, they don't dunk them but they let them get used to having water in their face in a fun way by taking a handful of water and putting it on their head and letting them splash back. I'd quit too or just go to a free swim. I registered Riley for swimming lessons at that age and quit when I felt like I could go to the free swim and get the same out of it.
ReplyDeleteI'd definitely leave this toddler swimming class as soon as possible. The instructor sounds horrid!
ReplyDelete