Background: one daughter, just 3, I am SAHP and likely to be for the foreseeable. I always said that I would start swimming lessons for her when she was able to follow verbal instructions, which now she is. Before now, I was taking her to the pool once a week pretty much every week, which she LOVES, is superconfident walking round the pool up to her chin, climbing out on the side, jumping in holding one hand, splashing, kicking, hanging out on floats, goes off and plays by herself (within reason!). We hang out afterwards at the poolside tables with recharge snacks, and we watch the swimmers doing laps "blowing bubbles the whole way" "look, on her back" etc etc.
DD goes to one parent-run ece where we have been for a year, one playgroup she has been at for about 2 years, and approaches most play opportunities or groups of children with confidence and interest - she may hang back in new situations or people for about 10 minutes but then easily joins in. I have no concerns about her socialising or going off to nursery.
I phoned the swimschool a few weeks to book her in for lessons next term, and they told me there was two spaces in the current class and did we want to join those and get started right away, which we did.
She HATES it. She can and has previously done all of what is asked, but screams and cries and doesn't want to join in. We've been to 3 sessions so far and its been the same each week. I've tried just letting her hang out with no pressure at first, then gentle encouragement, and then making her do it today (in the hope of once she sees she can do it, she will be happier doing the kicking/floating/pouring water on her own head). The sessions are very cruisy and gentle, lots of songs and splashing, and the instructor seems lovely. She knows at least 2 of the other 5 children there from ECE already too. And when I talk to her afterwards about it, she doesn't allude to any distress or dislike, in fact I've said to her so many time "did you have fun today in your swimming lesson with instructors name" and she replies, consistently, "yes".
After today's lesson, we stayed in the pool for about another 40 minutes and she even practiced putting her face in the water, repeatedly. I dunked her to swim underwater even - as we had been watching the others do in class for the last 3 weeks - and she was really relaxed. I've realised a while back that it seems to take her a while to 'warm up' in the pool, and so I do try and get her in a good 15 mins or so before her lesson, I might try 40 mins before the lesson next week (but its a fine line between getting too tired too?)
Part of me is 'listening' to what she can't articulate - the way she behaves there is really unusual for her - and last week I was thinking about it and said to the instructor "I'm thinking maybe she doesn't like being told what to do" and felt one of the other mums looking at me funny as I realised just how pfb that sounded! Like she's gone to swim classes to not be told what to do? I was just trying to figure out what was going on for her though. I know she's not hungry, as she gets a snack before we leave the house, as well as a decent breakfast an hour or so earlier, and she usually sleeps well, so not tired.
I'm also wary of turning something she previously loved into something traumatic and developing negative associations with "lets go to the pool!" when I am well-placed to continue to take her regularly, and tbh sixty quid a term on a single income could be so much better spent if its yielding no actual benefit! And isn't it my role as a parent to listen to my child?
OTOH I don't know if she is actually going to pick up any water skills by the cruisy relaxed "lets do some jumping in" "we're getting out the pool now, unless you want to practice blowing bubbles in the water" stylee which I usually do. I never learnt to swim til I was 8, despite my mum - a swim teacher - taking me regularly, and it took much much later to get my face in the water now try and get me out of the water. I know that DD watches what other children do and practices afterwards, in her own time, and so that aspect of the class could be useful as long as we hang out in the pool for a while afterwards.
I suppose I am also asking for your stories of swimclass hell - did you stick it out and it get better, or did you shelve it for a later date?
AIBU?
To stop her swimming lessons
Bambalina · 31/03/2016 03:01
I've scan read your post, it's very long. It sounds like you are stressing a bit about this so maybe she is picking up on that, maybe! 
Re "Part of me is 'listening' to what she can't articulate - the way she behaves there is really unusual for her - and last week I was thinking about it and said to the instructor "I'm thinking maybe she doesn't like being told what to do" and felt one of the other mums looking at me funny as I realised just how pfb that sounded!"
Of course she may not like being told what to do. And at three she is young enough not to need something like this in her life. My dd tried ballet, swimming and taekwan-do at different stages in her life and hated them all because she hated being told what to do! It's OK for them not to like being told what to do, and it;s OK to allow them to not have to deal with that yet.
At school they will need to be told what to do and will need to do swimming probably too, so why not keep swimming for fun, invest in a few one to one tutor sessions if you feel appropriate.
She is your previous first born, just as mine is mine, don't worry about what others think like this, give her a break and return to it later, perhaps with a different instructor. That's my advice. 
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I'd drop them, my kids never got on at swim lessons. I started them when they were a bit older than your dd but although they didn't hate them, they just didn't seem to get anything from them. Well dd2 pretty much hated them . I stopped taking them, continued taking them swimming for fun, they were grand in the water, would play, dunk their head etc - they just couldn't swim any strokes properly.
Dd1 steadily improved with just messing about, I had a bit of a wobble when she started P5 (swimming in school) in case she was the only one that couldn't really swim, she wasn't . She flew through the lessons the school took them to, I'm not sure if it was swimming with her friends, if she was just ready, or if the 'school" aspect helped her think of it differently. I could weep when I think of the money I spent when she was younger, school swimming costs me £1.50 a week.
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