letting your kids quit stuff (Page 3)

trigal38 - 2010-11-11 5:42 PM 4 is not 8 or 10 or 15.  It is a very different place developmentally.  If your goal is to solidify his fears of the water, make him stay.  If he is a generally anxious guy, have a parent nearby.  Or take him to the pool individually and work on exposure and reinforcement of skills with positive expectations ("I know you are scared, but I know you can do it").  But to make him stay for the sake of learning not to quit, at this age, is not really going to work out in most cases.  The lesson he might end up learning is that the world is scary, I am not equipped to deal with it, so I will not try new things.  And if you make me do things, I will fail.

Yes, gearboy. I should know this, my degree is early childhood ed, taught preschool for 13 years. Sometimes what I learned as a student is forgotten as a parent. Good reminder.

Honestly I watched him jump off the back of our boat all summer long so I really thought we were past fear of water stuff. But, he did always want me to wipe the water off of his face

phoenixazul - 2010-11-11 9:59 PM 1) Goggles will make the whole experience a lot more fun for him, I promise! That will make the later games of going for diving sticks or bobbing (breathing exercises in disguise!) a lot more fun/easy. Just don't get him the "scuba diver" ones that cover the nose and eyes because that will interfere with breathing and they're kind of uncomfortable. OK for the beach, annoying in the pool. Get normal, but kid sized, swimming goggles like you'd buy for tri training. You may have to try a few different kinds before you find a pair that fit his face properly, and you may have to spend anywhere from 5-12 dollars and get a decent pair. Trust me, you can get "goggles" from the dollar store in a three pack, but they leak and are terrible. 2) A wetsuit or even just the top might help. I found that my young male students were often freezing (blue lips!) in the pool, mostly because they're just all bone and muscle when they're so young. Being cold is miserable. Being cold, in a pool, with some weird lady in a swim suit telling you to blow bubbles is even more miserable. And finally, and I say this as a swim instructor who has taught private and class lessons...sometimes a kid just isn't ready. This isn't to say that you should quit, but different kids are ready at different times. I had a 4 year old who could swim all her strokes with decent form. I had others who never stopped crying at the beginning of lessons (but would do fine while in the water). If you think it will spoil his love of swimming or his ability to learn, then stop, regroup, try again at a later date. Just curious, are these the "Y" style lessons or are they following the Red Cross curriculum? I've taught both, but my preference (both as a teacher and as a swimmer) is for the Y style, just because it is based on measured achievements, and only promoting a swimmer when they have reached those achievements. Instructors regularly get kids involved in that, either by sharing the chart with the student ("Hey look! We've just done bobs and floats for 15 seconds! When it comes time for test day, we can check these skills off easy peasy! Let's see what we can work on next...) or "Hey, in Starfish, you get to learn to do _____. But in order to do that, we're going to tackle _____ skill today." Another thought: is he a social kid, or kind of quiet? Some kids do better in a group of two or three (often called "semi private") because there's a bit of competition, but every kid still gets attention. Some kids are super social and thrive in big classes. Others are really reserved or anxious and do better working one on one with a teacher. Yes, this is expensive, but I've had kids who would have definitely not done well in a group who have thrived one on one with a teacher. Lastly, does he work better with women or with men? I've found this to be more true with young girls than with boys, but some kids just work better with a female or male teacher. In one session there was one young student who would.not.work. with male instructors. She would shut down, cry, throw a huge tantrum and make herself ill if her regular instructor was not there or had called a male sub. And you are not being a pain by asking to switch instructors or switch to a different class structure (private to semi, etc). Sorry this got long, but I love teaching kids how to swim, and I really want them to succeed. Swimming isn't math, it is more like painting. Lots of people can paint, but there's more than one way to color a canvas .