I posted about swimming lessons before. Well my 10-year old is taking lessons and I LOVE the teacher! She is firm but kind, strict but fun. My daughter loves the lessons as well.
She's in a beginner class because she can't swim yet. She is the oldest, most of the kids average around seven years old. There is one girl who is a year younger, and another that is 8.
We are nearing the final week and my daughter won't put her face in the water when she swims. She still wants to doggy paddle. She'll do her front crawl with breathing for ONE or TWO strokes but then she'll stop. She will back float but won't front float for the time the teacher is telling her to (they have to front float with their face in the water while the teacher counts to 5).
It looks like she'll have to re-take the Beginner class because she's not going to pass. Her friends are both going to pass. This means she'll be by FAR the oldest in the class!
Any suggestions on how to help her? We can't afford to join our local pool, it's quite expensive. Should we make her practice in the bathtub? We can go swimming once in a while at our local pool, but not all the time.
My daughter WANTS to learn how to swim because she's being invited to pool parties. The last party she went to the lifeguard made the girls demonstrate that they could swim by diving off the deep end and they had to be able to swim the length of the pool. She couldn't do it, so she had to stay in the shallow end while every single one of her friends had fun diving off the diving board and playing Marco Polo. I felt so bad for her! We left early because she was so upset :(
Right now she's loving the class and the teacher and she WANTS to swim, but we can't make it past the barrier of putting her face in the water. HELP mamas!!
Thanks for advice! I bought her goggles but the teacher won't let her wear them. She says that she won't always have goggles available so she has to learn to swim without them before she swims with them. I can agree. If she falls in the water on accident she won't have goggles! She has to get used to water in her face.
I told her that she could have a swim party at the end of the summer if she learned to swim. I hope that inspires her to learn! She already improved in one day since telling her. Thanks!
I saw that someone said goggles. Definitely try that!
I taught swim for a long time, and sometimes I think it is the fear of not being able to see that kind of scares the kids. Give her goggles so she can see whats happening under the water. Have you tried getting in the water and doing it with her?
Water goggles, ear plugs, and nose plugs. I'll bet that she's afraid of getting water up her nose the most out of anything. I love going underwater but I can't swim very well unless I have nose plugs. Even if I simply hold my breath water trickles up there, and if I exhale while underwater then I can't stay under as long. Then of course I'm afraid of inhaling water while I'm under. Nose plugs cured this fear for me as a child and it helped me learn to swim much more quickly with much more confidence.
Get her a dive mask to try out in the tub & shower. I aways thought it was getting water in his eyes that was stopping my son from "going under" very much. Turns out it was his nose.
As a kind of afterthought I picked up a $6 dive mask at the resort store & gave it to my son while he was in the pool. He removed his life vest (he was 7 at the time) put the mask on & went under & I barely saw him above water for the rest of the week! Now I know she can't wear the dive mask at swim lessons but it will help her get more comfy with going underwater.
We went through the same experience with our son. He LOVES to swm, and we got him into swim lessons. He has had to take some of the classes several trime before he passed into the next level. That's very normal in swim classes. Or at least in all the ones he's been in.
It took him a very long time to put his face in the water. We tried the bathtub as well. And it worked a little. As long as he had his goggles he would at least try in the tub.
I think he finally tried and succeeded one day when we were at Centennial Beach. I had been talking to him about how his swimming experience would change completely and a whole new world would open up to him once he went underwater.
He was at the point in his lessons where he needed to do this or he wouldn't pass nor be able to go any further in the levels. I think it was a combo of everything that made him finally try.
We encouraged him continually as he tried it, and then once he did that a few times it was like he'd been doing it all along.
He then started jumping in the pool after he put his head underwater. Now he LOVES to swim with his whole body under water. And you'd never know there was any hesitation on his part.
I wish I had a better answer or a time line-but as with anything with kids-they do things on their timeline and when they are ready.
Have you asked the swim instructor for suggestions?
This reminds me of myself when I was a kid. I took swimming lessons twice, once was private lessons at someone's house, and once was at the Y. I couldn't move on to the next class. I could barely go off the diving board and swim to the side. I had a great time at doing just that at camp- until they did the swim test. After that I had to stay in the shallow end. I tried to have fun anyway, jumping off the edge into the pool. Then I tried jumping backward off the side, busted my chin on the concrete, and couldn't swim at all for the rest of camp. A few years later I had a terrifying experience with a wave pool.
Even though I didn't do well, I am still very glad that I took swim lessons back then. My husband did not. He still won't put his face in the water, and panics at waterslides that end in less than 3 ft of water.
As an adult, I have gotten slightly better at swimming. I found out I have asthma and got it under control. I took informal lessons from a wheelchair-bound friend who lived at an apartment with a pool. I learned to swim on my back most of the time so I don't have to put my face in the water and I can keep my glasses on.
My son went through a phase of not wanting to put his face in the water. We tried swim goggles and ear plugs to get him through the lessons. He is OK without the goggles and ear plugs now, but still needs to work on his coordination.
Is it fear or a particular feeling that's bothering her? If it's water hurting her eyes, try using swim goggles, and maybe start out in the shower. When my son was learning to float on his back the water in his ears bothered him, so we tried moldable ear plugs.
I taught swimming lessons for years, and my suggestion is a simple one. Does she wear goggles? If not, buy her some (at Target, Wal-Mart, CVS, or wherever - only a few dollars). Sometimes it's as simple as not being able to see underwater that keeps kids from putting their faces in the water.
The other thing that helps is to tell her to blow all her bubbles out underwater. Sometimes kids hold their breath when their faces are in the water. Then, when they lift their head out of the water, they have to breathe out, then in, which when you repeat it a bunch of times, leads to hyperventilating. It's extremely difficult to do! But if they blow bubbles underwater, it keeps this problem from occurring. One way to practice this is to have her fill your hands (or her own hands) with bubbles - or, yes, practice in the bathtub!
It's okay to be the oldest in the class. My own grandmother never learned to swim when she was a child, and she took a beginner swimming class at the age of 70! There she was, perched on the edge of the pool with all the 5 year olds! She did learn though. ;)
Hopefully some of these suggestions help. Even if she has to re-take the class 3 or 4 times, remind her that Rome wasn't built in a day! Once she learns how to swim, she will never forget how, and it is a very useful skill, one that could save her life one day. Stick with it and don't be discouraged!
Well there is a fear there .......... Bath-tub would be great idea or a friends pool.......maybe there is too much preasure at the lessons, have to find a place where she is comfortable for her first time.
Hi C. M,
I second the use of goggles. Make sure you get good ones that can be adjusted fully to her face. The trick to using most goggle is to get them wet first, then push them to around the eye sockets so they don't leak.
My son was a born little fishy, but my daughter was a bit more hesitant. I started teaching both of them to swim when they were young by playing lots of pool games with them. Take your daughter to a public pool -- the cost should be pretty low, or to the Y as others have suggested and have her dive for rings and pool torpedos in the shallow area (wearing the goggles, of course!). This will help her get used to being under water--with her eyes open--in a really fun way, and since you're near by, it should help her feel more secure. Another thing I did with my kids was get a hoola hoop and had them swim through the hoop at different levels through the water: at the surface, just below the surface, and than deeper down. As their skills grew, I would move further away from them, so they had to swim greater distances to get through the hoop.
Since your daughter is 10, have you tried asking her why she's having a hard time? She may not have a fear issue, but might not like the feel of water clogging her ears. Using a product like SwimEar or AuroDry will help to unplug her ears quickly after swimming. If she knows she won't have to walk around half-deaf for several hours after swimming, it might help.
Two other thoughts:
1. Teach her the back stroke, or the rescue back stroke, or even the breast stroke. All of these are legitimate swim strokes, and don't require that the face be in the water.
2. Have her stand in a comfortable level of water, put her face in the water, and blow bubbles while you count to 5 (you can do a count down under water using your fingers). The swim teacher should have started with teaching the kids to blow bubbles while swimming, because you can't take another breath until you've blown out the one you're holding. Once she gets the hang of breathing out by blowing bubbles, have her hang onto the side of the pool while she tummy floats and blow bubbles, then practice turning her head to the side to breath. Once she gets that skill down, have her do the same by swimming around the pool hanging onto a kick board -- see the progression? The final step is, of course, adding in the side breath while stroking. If you stroke properly, you should actually make a bit of a trough in the water near your face so that you only have to turn your head a little bit to catch a breath.
Good luck!
It can take practice to become comfortable keeping her face under water. You mentioned practicing in the tub, and I think that's a great idea. Make a game out of it. And maybe even buying her an inexpensive snorkel, to play with in the bathtub. My daughter has lots of fun doing this!
Maybe she needs to take private lessons with a teacher that can take the time to focus on that one thing. I took lessons for months at a time because I went to a school in Southern California that had a swimming pool. Because of that we worked on one new thing per week. She isn't getting the attention that she needs by being in a class with other kids and following the group's pace. I would spring for a session of private lessons.
And I'm sure it will come with time....
Good luck to you both.
I would START with ear plugs. My son intensely dislikes getting water in his ears...though he LOVES to swim. He will swim with or without goggles, but really doesn't like the water in his ears. Although he is "over" that now. But if she is having issues with the water, try the ear plugs. THEN, if that doesn't help, let her try goggles. I know SO many kids that having goggles on their eyes makes all the difference.
When I learned to swim in lessons eons ago (well, 36 or so odd years ago)... I swam the length of the pool (almost) until I ran into the side of it. Why? Because I refused to open my eyes in the water and didn't see where I was swimming to, and my sense of dead reckoning was a little off, lol. If I'd had goggles on, it would've been a snap. Some pools, the chemicals are so strong it makes it really uncomfortable to open your eyes in the water. In private pools it usually is not noticeable.
So, let her try the ear plugs and if that solves it, great. If not, let her try goggles on.
my boys were the same way, but it took a male instructor to get them to put their faces in the water. But since you have a girl I suppose that won't work for you!! Do you have a YMCA near you? Maybe you can take her there, and teach her yourself. Maybe the teacher is not patient enough with her, and maybe you will be. I know the Y around here lets you go for free, I think it is 3 times. Hope you get it resolved!!
