The Diary of Fiona J McNally

Swim School

I have noticed each week at swimming lessons that if a child in the toddler or 3 + age bracket becomes unwilling to perform a certain task or becomes frightened, the teachers start to lose patience a bit. As an onlooker who has no qualifications in teaching swimming, I am inclined to think that some of the methods employed are a bit harsh. Maybe, I have no clue as to what sort of instruction and enforcement is required when dealing with children of this age in this context. Maybe I too would start to lose it a bit if I had to deal with a constant stream of reluctance to co-operate.

Swimming however, is not like being asked to pick up one's toys or to clean up a room or sit nicely at a table. It can potentially be a life and death situation and there is a certain amount of healthy fear attached to holding your breath under water.

For example, I can see no point in telling a child that unless they are willing to dive for a ring or swim with their face in, they will be forced to remain in the pool - even if everyone else has gone home. I don't know about you but if I was 3 or 4 and someone made this sort of threat to me I would be pretty disturbed by it.

One child a few weeks ago started howling and claiming that ":I will never be ready to do this - I am scared! Scared! I don't want to!" The father of the child became angry and made more threats and in the end the kid was cowering in the corner of the pool. It nearly broke my heart. I had to hold myself back from pulling the child from the pool and spiriting them off to safety. The swimming instructor was not sympathetic to the child's plight and even turned to the small but increasingly horrified crowd of mothers and exclaimed "It's okay, he does this every week."

Try a little tenderness springs to mind. If a child performs and creates because they don't want t o do something, then maybe a gentler approach is required. Who knows? Maybe I am just missing the point??

posted by Fiona McNally @ 10/25/2005 07:28:00 am