It’s obvious that my little fish doesn’t have ears because he didn’t hear a word the teacher said during the entire lesson. I had an idyllic image in my head of Sam being thrilled to see the potential that swimming holds so he’d listen to the teacher and be able to propel himself from me to the side of the pool with minimal interference. Why oh why do I believe such silly things?
Tips for making your swimming lessons as miserable as possible:
Make sure child has insufficient but hyper energy by maintaining a somewhat empty after-school belly.
Arrive about 10 minutes early when there was another group in the pool. “I want to go in mama!” “Mama I want to go in the water!” “Mama I want to go in the water!” These pleas must be accompanied with lots of kicking and pulling. Take child for a theoretically distracting walk around the big lap pool. “I want to go in mama!”
Allow child to select a brightly colored pool noodles at the request of the teacher. Child quickly discovers that they’re fun to slap on the surface of the pool. “Sam, the noodle goes under you.” Slap. Slap.
Try to listen to the teacher while child rockets back and forth between the noodle and your neck. Disengage child’s arm from your swimsuit strap while trying to prevent flashing other kids and parents.
Convince child to try the scoops and kicks the teacher has been mentioning. “Sam, make your hands into spoons, not forks.” “Sam, don’t run into other people.” “Kick your feet!” Child is able to propel himself to the end of the pool and it occurs to him that he could get out and jump back in.
Catch child repeatedly while other better behaved children actually listen to the teacher.
Try to remove the child from the pool at the end of the lesson. “I don’t want to get out of the pool mama!” “No, I don’t want to go” “No! No! No!”
Of course it’s not surprising that he’s doing any of this stuff, it’s just that I wasn’t prepared which is stupid given my past experiences with ice skating and yoga classes. I know that swimming lessons at this age are largely to help teach parents how to teach their kids how to swim and I did learn a bit that we can work on the next time we’re at the beach so I have to consider the lesson a success. I just wish I’d been able to enjoy it.
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3 comments:
He he, sounds "fun". He's a real nonconformist, no? Hmmm...I'd like to say that maybe that ten minutes you had to wait before class could be used for a snack, but that might just give Sam more of the wrong kind of energy.
lol Don't worry, he'll get used to lessons, and then he'll settle down and learn
But but but feeding him right before that would break the golden rule of waiting 20 minutes before swimming. Where did that come from and why has everyone heard it anyway?
he he. That was always Dad's joke. "you have to wait a half and hour before going into the water after eating." I always imagined simply sticking my toe into the water and getting a tremendous stomach cramp if I didn't wait that magical 30 minutes. lol
I guess...in theory, if you ate a gigantic lunch and then tried to swim across the English Channel, you might get a cramp, but...
Actually, I'd probably get a cramp anyway, if I had to do all of that swimming!!
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