DD5 swimming lessons - completely regressed

[nonickno]

When DD started swimming lessons last year she could swim with one float, back and front, straight legs, no fear etc. Now she refuses to leave the side of the pool, unless she has 2 floats and the instructor holding her and she cries, turns her back on the teacher, won't do as she is asked and generally totally plays up. The 2 guys that teach her are great and I don't think moving her to a different class would help - I could be wrong! I think it is more likely to be a just turned 5 year olds insecurities and nothing I say to her is making any difference. I need some good advice! I'm turning in to the nightmare Mum that kneels at the side of the pool trying to spur her on. Any pearls of wisdom? Thank you.

[Megrim]

Don't stay poolside! Honestly, the best thing to do is hand her over to the teachers and retreat. Have a quiet word with the teachers to see if they can do some fun games with her class that would tempt her to join in (they probably do 5 mins or so of games at the beginning as a warm up / ice breaker), she'll still be learning stuff and developing water confidence. It shouldn't be a problem for her to be using two floats, or a float and a noodle, for a while.

[Nocomet]

Can you go swimming with another family with similar slightly older DCs in a fun pool.

It's amazing what DCs will do when they are not being told to!

[nonicknameseemsavailable]

it is probably a new stage of awareness development that is causing it - so suddenly she is developing a sense of fear and danger that she didn't have before.

no ideas on how to handle it though sorry.

[Nocomet]

That's possible, DD1 had a short, but very annoying phase of hating driving in the dark at that age.

Given where we live has no street lights and neither do any of the nearby roads, this was not helpful.