An Adventure in Swim Lessons

This week marked a pretty important milestone for us; Lil B started swim lessons for the first time.  Not only is this her first time in swim lessons, it’s her first time in any type of class outside of school.  She turned 4 in January and up until this week wouldn’t voluntarily get off the first step in any pool.

She will happily sit on the stairs of any pool and play for hours.  She’s not afraid of the water, just afraid to leave the stairs.  Since we live in Florida and have a pool in the backyard it’s a necessity that this girl learns to swim this year.  We have a fence around the backyard but don’t have a safety fence around the pool.  In fact, tonight my oldest and his friend were running around and his friend fell in the pool.  Thankfully, he is in middle school and knows how to swim but I wasn’t even out there (they were suppose to be in the front yard, not the back).  That kinda scares the crap out of me…what if?!?!

I have heard so many of our friends rave about our local swim school so I decided this was the year that Lil B was going to learn to swim.  My son was a fish from birth and when we moved into this house (he was about 2) he quickly learned how to swim on his own.  It took about a full swim season for him to be confident but he could “fake” it quite well at 2.  My daughter, not so much!

We opted for group classes (4 kids, 2 teachers), three nights a week for a month.  The class is only 30 minutes long and goes by SO quickly.  The first night, the entire family packed up to go watch.  I had to laugh because all of the kids in her class cried BIG UGLY TEARS the entire time!  One instructor was in the water and the other one (the “bodyguard”) was sitting behind the kids so they couldn’t run away.  Trust me, they all WANTED to run away after they had to go underwater for the first time.  I know they are in good hands but it was hard to watch.  One minute I was laughing my butt off, the next I would be biting my lip as the teacher tried to earn their trust.

The one thing that I love about my little one is how much she wanted to impress us.  She would be holding on to the instructors neck with a death grip and fighting back the tears, then she would look up at us (we have to sit on the other side of the pool) with THE BIGGEST SMILE I’ve ever seen!  Then it was right back to the tears as she swam back to the edge.

That’s her in the middle, smiling at me!

Tonight was lesson #3 and her confidence is improving.  The tears were only there for about 2 minutes at the beginning of class.  As they were lined up sitting on the edge they had to push off into the pool and ‘swim’ to their instructor just a few feet away.  They would then hold them and let them practice kicking and worked on their arm motions.  These ladies (and a few guys) are SO good with the kids.  They have so much patience and have such positive attitudes.  I’m in love with this place – so worth every penny that I was reluctant to spend.

The best part of the entire night is hearing her talk and talk and talk about how she ‘swam’ tonight and didn’t cry.  She told me the whole way home, then she told her daddy, then she told her grandparents.  She was so proud of herself and that is invaluable.  We have 3 more weeks of lessons and I can’t wait to see how far she advances by the end of the month.

If you live near water, what age did your kids learn to swim?  We they easy to teach (like my son) or did they take their own time to become fish?  

Disclosure: I paid for swim lessons, this is not a sponsored post, I love Seal Swim School in North Pinellas (Florida), and my iPhone doesn’t have a great zoom.