My Water Baby

This Spring/Summer my daughter has been lucky enough to have gone swimming more than a few times. We first noticed that she was a water baby during bath time. She gleefully splashed about (and made a mess of the bathroom) and would sit and play for a few minutes after her bath. We signed her up for parented swimming lessons and she thrived. She loved being dunked and jumping off the edge of the pool into Daddy's arms. We are also lucky enough to know a few people with a pool so she has been in the water quite a bit this summer. To keep the momentum going, I decided to sign her up for private swimming lessons so that she would be able to benefit from some one-on-one time with an instructor. We showed up the first day excited and ready to go and... she screamed her little head off the entire time. I felt so bad for the instructor who had to listen to her crying in his ear the whole lesson. It got so bad it was suggested to me that she might do better if I wasn't around. So I spent the half hour lesson sitting on the driveway instead of watching my "water baby" learn to swim.
Day two was the same. I missed the entire lesson. Day three was a little better because I managed to sneak back into the pool area halfway through the lesson and by day four she still cried when it was time to go in but she was too distracted by all the toys to care that I was sitting there. Today is our last day and while I'm not sure if she will pass this level, I am very proud of how she has adapted. At first I was surprised at her behaviour but when I thought about it, it did make sense. She is 14 months old and is used to swimming with either myself, my husband or both of us. All of a sudden I was handing her off to a stranger and then was surprised when she didn't want anything to do with it.
I will definitely be enrolling her in the private lessons again next year, although I will probably splurge for two weeks so that she has a chance to get comfortable with a new face.
I believe that giving children the opportunity to develop swimming skills has many benefits. It's not about being an Olympic swimmer (although if that's what she wanted, great!), it's about learning a set of skills that will build her confidence and may one day save her life.

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