Swimming Lessons

The past two weeks Olivia has been participating in swimming lessons at our local pool.  While we do lots of swimming on our own, she has still been quite timid in the water.  She's perfectly brave when it's a depth she can touch in, but kind of freaks out when she can't feel the bottom and is terrified to put her face in the water.  We've been working on these things with her, but weren't making the progress I'd like to see.  We knew if someone else would be her teacher, she would do a better job of listening to what they asked her to do. 

Lessons met in the mornings for about 45 minutes, for 7 sessions.  While most of the time was spent in the shallow kiddie pool playing around, they did get the kids to jump with life jackets into the big pool, and eventually off the diving board. 

Olivia did as expected.  She loved the kiddie pool time with her friends, and from what I could tell was a good listener to her teachers.  They practiced blowing bubbles in the water, and I could see her teacher saw how hesitant she was.  I think this clued the teachers in to her nervousness because when it came to jumping into the water, her teachers were kind to give her extra comfort and make it easy for her. 

Couldn't be any more gentle than that!  And check out that smile on her face!

She was easily one of the more scared kids in the class, but in the end she did it.  I remember swimming lessons as a kid, and I would dread it each year.  I was terrified of jumping off the diving board, so I'm afraid she may be getting her nerves from me.  Hopefully more of her swim-team-dad will creep in. 

My goal was for her teachers to push her outside of her comfort zone with the water.  While they did that, I almost wish they would have pushed her more.  Olivia might benefit from some private lessons.  I've got some plans in mind, so we'll see how the rest of this summer goes at the pool.