Our 8 yr old cannot swim without floating aids.

A question about : Our 8 yr old cannot swim without floating aids.

Our daughter is almost 8 yrs old. She started swimming lessons at the age of 5. She was extremely scared of water. We didn't take her to the pool when she was a little kid, as I myself couldn't swim. I had to learn swimming as an adult before she started her lessons. We have taken her swimming whenever we can ever since, but then she will only play in the pool.
For the first couple of lessons, she would only stand in the pool. Progress has been very slow since. Initially we thought that she wasn't getting much out of group lessons, due to teachers
constantly changing. After 2 years of only group lessons we went for one to one lessons. She has been doing 121 for the past five months. Only in the last 2 months, she had lessons continuously with the same teacher. He has been really good. She will swim with some floating aid, but wouldn't let go any of it. She always kept her face out of the water. We have tried bribes for every effort she makes. She is quite stubborn and now she says she will not swim without any floating aid, although the teacher thinks she really can. The teacher has also tried a lot of things with her. We can't blame him or his efforts.
I think swimming is an essential skill, but I believe forcing her will not achieve this. Unable to decide the best course of action. She is an only child and even peer pressure with her classmates or family friends hasn't worked out.
We are not sure how to continue with this. We can surely
afford the one to one lessons, as long as she needs it. However, if she doesn't want to do it, it seems pointless paying for it. Wondering if we should stop at least for a few months or a year and try again. Worried all the effort would be totally lost by then.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Best answers:

• Have you asked her about it?
  (I learned to swim as a child, and we had a fortnight course in primary school in lifesaving etc. on the last day we were allowed to do whatever. I got pushed off a diving board by another child (16 ft above the surface into 16ft of water). I've been water phobic ever since.)
• Yikes NANU, what a horrible thing to happen!
  As for the OP's daughter, I literally don't know what to suggest, other than persevere. Keep taking her for the lessons once a week, and also go swimming as a family (or just you and her,) maybe twice a month?
  She is still young and she will learn, eventually.
• Is she getting to the age when her friends will have swimming parties? She maybe could be persuaded to go floatless to prepare for that.
• I think I'd have a break from the lessons for now. It sounds as if your daughter has probably learnt to swim but for whatever reason is choosing not to put it into practise.
  It may well be that she's picked up on your anxiety or worry about not being able to swim (well done btw on learning now). I would think just letting it go and not making a fuss is more likely to alleviate any pressure she is feeling. Do they do school swimming lessons soon? In a different set up she might decide to take the final step of letting go of the buoyancy aids and swimming by herself.
• Even if you take a break from proper lessons i think you should go the pool as often as you can, but without putting any pressure on her to learn. Just let her splash about in her own time.
  Whitewing has it right, as she sees her friends swim she'll want to join in.
• Does she ever go to a pool just for fun, one with slides, inflatables, lazy river etc. or is it always just lessons?
• Keep her going, but talk through the week about how great it will be when she has a go without the floats.
• If it was my child, I would stop the lessons but carry on going to the pool as a family and let her do what she wants, with no pressure. If she wants to use floats, then let her use floats. I say this because if there is one thing I have learned about children, it is that they will not do something until they are ready to do so. Once they WANT to do it, it is so much easier for them to learn. My youngest son resisted all efforts to get him reading until he was ready; once he wanted to learn, he mastered it very quickly indeed.
• Why are you pushing her?
  Is she's not comfortable with letting go of the floats etc. it's not the end of the world for now. You're going to turn it into a phobia if you force her to feel terrified of the water.
  Just let her enjoy her lessons however she feels comfortable. She's not going to still want arm bands when she's 14. She'll get there in her own time when she feels confident enough.
• Not quite the same issue but our now 8 year old started to learn to swim and then quickly had to stop (roof became unsafe on the pool we were using). After probably a year we managed to find both boys new lessons, but whereas the older one had managed to swim before the break and picked it up again, the younger one went back to square one and being fairly "assertive" refused to really engage with it. Gradually he did pick up some skills but like the daughter in the OP he stayed quite stubbornly against actually swimming.
  The way we broke it was to book a weeks holiday (in the summer when we'd normally be away) in a complex of cottages that had shared use of an indoor pool. At his swimming lessons they had a fun session at the end of term when parents could join in and they had loads of inflatables in the water - he got quite into a particular "manta ray" thing so we found one on ebay for a few quid and got that. So whilst we were away we just used the pool every day - no agenda, he was allowed to wear armbands, use inflatables etc. By the last day he'd got so used to it we managed to persuade him to swim a bit without any aids. We're only talking the width of a small pool so maybe 5metres tops, however it broke the barrier and he's now swimming fine. Funnily enough we were looking back this morning after his swimming lessons at the weekend where he was really working hard on specific strokes to the fact that it was summer 2011 when we had that holiday. (I should say that despite swimming a bit unaided on holiday he was still using aids to some degree when he went back to lessons whilst he built technique etc).
• With respect may I ask why you need your little girl to swim? Do you live near water? Is there a daily risk for her? It does seem it's become a big issue between you which may well be putting her off doing what she feels safe and secure doing, ie using the float aids. As others have suggested it would seem better to take her to the pool/river/sea when you go but not say a word about her going into the water. No doubt she will let go of the float aids when she's ready, not when someone else thinks is the right time. Or not, it's not the end of the world if she doesn't want to but I should think she'll feel quite self-conscious about using them when she's in her teens and want to let go of them by then. Agreed swimming can be a sociable thing to do and as a mother I do understand you want her to be safe.
  I lived by a river throughout my childhood and wouldn't swim at all, my parents taught me about water safety and fortunately I never had the need to put that lesson into practise.
  Incidentally I'm now a grandmother and my new project is to learn to swim
• When I was a kid I was frogmarched to the swimming pool by parents who couldn't swim but I never learnt until I wanted to learn when I was about 25.
  The issue I had was not the swimming as such, but the difficulty in getting my feet onto the bottom when I wanted to stop. I'm 6'6" but I practiced gliding and stopping in the baby pool until I could do it, and then I was swimming lengths in the big pool within a couple of sessions.
• I don't and didn't like getting my face underwater - does she have good goggles that really work? I realise now sensitive eyes are part of my issue. By far my favourite stroke was the lifesaving kick that is breaststroke on the back, followed by sidestroke - I haven't really mastered crawl to this day.
  Have you though of less buoyant floats?
• I had loads of swimming lessons when I was a child, both at school and privately. My brother swam like a fish, my sis and I swam like bricks! Some people are natural waterbabies and some, like me (and theoretica) just don't like the feeling of water on our faces.
  I eventually realised that I actually could swim after taking my son to swim when he was a baby. I managed to drag DH along a couple of times and we were just mucking around, he can swim underwater but not on top and I was showing him how I couldn't swim at all when I found that I really could! (It's not very elegant, I flap about all over the place!) I still can't swim underwater and I don't like being in deep water, it makes me catch my breath and I start to panic a little.
  My sis (40 last month) has just started swimming lessons and it's going well for her, it can be done...even when you're "older"
  OP, I see that you live in London so you're probably not more than 30 mins away from a decent pool with a wave machine, slides and so on. Most pools will have "family" sessions with all of the machines working and the floats in the pool, we used to love going to these sessions, they're much more fun than formal lessons. Get your daughter used to swimming for fun, she may well relax more and increase her confidence.
  I paid a fortune for lessons for my son, just so that he would be able to swim with his mates when he was old enough. None of his mates ever go swimming because it's either "too cold", or "a bit gay" (??) and he won't go with me because he's a teenager and would rather die a horrible death than be seen out with his mother!
  Don't fret too much, she'll get there in the end. Ease off on the pressure and let her just enjoy the water. It will probably all come together sooner or later.
• I think that maybe the private lessons are a bit much. Although teachers will teach them to swim, they try and teach kids to swim 'properly' with your face in, breathing to the sides thing. I can swim but can't swim properly like that. I don't need to put my face in and all that stuff to be able to swim.