Give them a hot bath with some soothing coco before each lesson. Just kidding.
It’s often a mystery as to what will melt a non-swimmer’s anxiety away. I do know an ounce of prevention is worth several pounds of the gold it will take you to get them to accept swimming. Let’s keep it simple and get right into it.
5 Ways To Prepare a Fearful Child For Swim Lessons:
1. Check out the instructor and the swim environment first. Lots of clubs and community centers give out facility tours. Go on one together and hang out at the pool side. Observe the instructors, get names, and talk to a nearby mom about the process.
2. Talk about that first lesson before it happens. If your child has not been exposed to a student-teacher relationships, or is learning how to master that skill, explain the expectations. It is possible to do this without talking about swimming expectations; leave that to the great instructor you selected in Step 1. I’d also suggest setting up a rewards system for a soon-to-be job well done.
3 . Practice in the bathtub. Take a small toy bucket of water, pour over head, repeat. Teach bubbles. Teach holding a breath. Use cuing for all of this, which is vocal preparation by saying ONE~TWO~THREE! before you do anything water-related. And don’t wipe water off their face — this is what conditioned the resistance in the first place and thus defeats the ability to learn to cope.
4. Have a friend or sibling go first. I don’t recommend going together, which appears to have certain results (or what I call short-term results) at first. Just that a brother, sister or friend take a lesson so the fearful one can watch what happens.
5. Tell them they aren’t having a “real” lesson. If that anxiety kicks up something fierce during Step 2, you might want to reduce the fear by explaining to your child they aren’t having a real swim lesson, but rather a “kick board” or “bubbles” lesson. Talk about this in front of the instructor and get them to play along.
If your child is at all anxious, has a tentative nature, or might need individual support, I strongly recommend you start with one-on-one instructor verse a group environment approach. Group swim lessons work best for the comfortable swimmer who doesn’t need much instruction or additional safety. And the experience of not being able to perform in a group equates an to even bigger step back.
No matter the size of the fear, remember that you are the boss. Swimming isn’t like soccer, where it doesn’t really matter if your child cannot kick a ball right. Not being able to swim is a life-or-death matter, so despite tears and fears, press forward. Tomorrow’s swimming success starts today!
