I love swimming, and so does my daughter. From these two statements, you might assume that we would adore swimming lessons. You’d be dead wrong.
When my daughter was a toddler, I decided that I would inspire myself to get out of the house and sign up for some swimming lessons at the local pool. While I thought that baby and toddler swimming lessons were a little silly, I figured that having a particular time scheduled for swimming would help my sorry self get to the pool. We enjoyed the lessons until the instructor decided that all of the toddlers should get out of the pool and jump to their parents. My toddler would not budge and would scream, so I would bring her back into the pool. Soon enough, the lessons were over and we didn’t return to lessons until she was three.
The first lesson of age three, my daughter cried. It was in an outdoor pool down the block, and after the first one she figured that this was ok, she could deal with it. Although she enjoyed the lessons, at the end of the lessons the teacher once again asked the kids to jump in the deep end.
We went to swimming lessons again in the fall. My daughter adored the first set of lessons, which was held – miraculously – in the shallow end. I applauded. The second set of lessons? Out of room, they moved the class to the deep end. We quit after two. And so I have been informed that we will not be doing any swimming lessons this year, period.
Luckily, our townhouse complex has a lovely outdoor pool that we can swim in. It’s great because I don’t have to worry about what will happen with my expensive insulin pump when I swim. It also has a sauna, an added bonus to get to the pool. We’re going to visit the pool regularly, and I’ll work on teaching my daughter to swim – in the shallow end. This seems to be the place where she’s done most of her learning about how to swim anyway.
Why did we persist in doing swimming lessons? Ironically, it’s due to the fact that my daughter has always been happy to jump into the deep end of our townhouse pool, sometimes without warning.