My kid is the kid who is kicking, screaming and crying at swim lessons. Yep, that’s us. We’re the ones you look sadly at and think, “Poor thing, I’m glad my kid’s not like that.” I never thought I would have a child who was so terrified of swim lessons, but I do. He LOVES the baby pool, but he is 4 and is getting a little too big to be splashing around with the babies. He has not always been this way, though. He loved swim lessons when he was a toddler and he even liked them when he was 3 when he had to get in the pool without me. Then, there was the fateful summer (last summer), when we had a teacher who thought it would be fun to roughhouse with the kids. Liam likes to roughhouse just as much as the next kid, but he completely respects the danger factor of water and realizes that maybe the pool is not the best place to roughhouse especially with a bunch of non-swimmers. She ruined him. THANK GOD we have an awesome swim teacher this year who somehow manages to get him in the pool and then manages to drag him away from the side of the pool so that he can actually be an active participant in the lesson. (She was even bold enough to grab him by the ankles as he tried to bolt on the first day. (Yep, it’s that bad.) She was still in the pool and he was on the side. Then there is Colm who gets upset when his swim lessons are over. He loves the pool! Maybe some of it will rub off on his big brother. 🙂 We only have to do this five more times and then lessons will be over for the season. Phew!
