We have a pool in our townhouse complex, and my daughter visits it nearly every day during the five month long pool season. This year, she’s managed to learn how to move across the pool without a flotation device. This is a great accomplishment, but a little scary. She now feels like she knows how to swim.
Every summer, we also take swimming lessons down the street from our house. The lessons are very strict, but the kids do learn how to swim well. Everyone from our neighborhood goes.
Last year, the first lesson met with a lot of tears from my daughter. She did not want to be there. I debated pulling her out but decided to persevere. She ended up enjoying herself, but this year she did not want to go back. Until her friends began signing up, of course – then she was quite keen to try swim class again.
On Sunday night, she had the jitters. She did not want to go again. I was tempted to pull out the old tried-and-not-so-true lecture about sticking to a goal. Instead, I tried to remind myself why we are doing lessons in the first place.
Our attitudes toward lessons very much reflect our attitudes to all learning. I have to remind myself that my goal is not for my daughter to be able to do all of the things that the teacher asks her to do. My goal is not for her to pass the swim class. I need her to be safe in the pool. She knows how to doggie paddle, but it would be helpful if she could learn how to move more efficiently and how to tread water to stay up. That’s all. If she can gradually accomplish these things over the next two summers of swimming lessons, I’m happy. That and she needs to enjoy herself. Breeding a fear of the water by forcing her to do things is not what I want to do at all.