DD hates swimming lessons with school..

[canthurryup]

Daughter is 9 years old and recently started swimming with school. She hates it. It has got to the point now where she cries the night before begging me not to let her go, she is sick waking in the nigh. I have discussed with teacher who have said it's part of the curriculum so she has to do it.
She has it fhis morning and has been waking throughout the night and being sick this morning. WIbU to keep her off school because school are not interested in helping.

I feel for her as I hated swimming lessons at school.

My problem wasn't swimming as I'd already been taught. My problem was my periods. They'd started when I was eight and I'd have one at least one week in three. I was the only girl in school with them.

I still remember the horror and fear when I discovered my period had started on the bus on the way. Had it been the female teacher my mum had already had a word with I'd have just been told to sit it out. Instead, it was the headmaster.

When he learned I wouldn't come out of the changing room he stormed in and tried dragging me into the pool. He failed so punched me instead. Different times.

I was terrified of him and terrified that there'd be a bloom of blood around me in the pool. No way was I going in. From that day on I was always 'ill' on swim days.

Can you get to the bottom of her fears? If she sits them out take her swimming yourself. Find a private instructor that's patient and recognises the fear of water if that's her problem. If the changing room is her problem you need to still take her somewhere with cubicles or use a changing robe.

I love swimming and would hate to see your DD miss out by her not getting help.

I think since the school is being unsupportive and you take her to lessons anyway (or have in the past) I would keep her off or have doctor's appts or something. Something is obviously troubling her - she might not have the language yet to express it but she will value you listening to her concerns. Just make her promise to do more private lessons instead as learning water safety and swimming is important.

My son hates the school lessons. We have been taking him to swimming lessons for a few years and he loves swimming but not the ones at school. It’s not the noise as he’s happy to be in a public swim. He can’t really explain why he doesn’t like them but I don’t remember them being the fun filled, enjoyable lesson of my time at school either.

I hated school swimming because of the changing in public at that age. What do you do/are allowed to do/are others doing with body hair? What do you do with your period? Who's started their periods? Having to tell the teacher and make a show if it if that's you. The comparison re stages of development. Who's fat or skinny in their swimsuit. The worry over the locker. My hair is impossible and leaving it to dry naturally resulted in a horrible frizzy bush. Wearing an ugly swimming cap, at that age. The bag of damp things. Lessons were mixed and the boys were filthy, immature, and stared and jeered. The pool had bits in it. The boys snotted into it on purpose. In the way of many PE teachers, our swim one was a bully. Waiting in the cold with damp hair to be collected.
I got out of the pool at 15 when we could voluntarily do something else and I did not get back into one for over a decade. And fwiw I could swim in the first place and last summer at nearly 40 I swam naked in the sea. I think this is a time when your daughter needs her mother to stand up for her.

Because it’s part of the curriculum. Would you let her skip maths or English? What is it teaching her for life skills- when you get a job you can just avoid the bits you don’t like?
I agree with other posters- work with school on a solution to the problem. Ask for a formal meeting to clarify the issues and come up with a plan.

If a job caused someone so much distress that they were throwing up before shifts, i'd be helping them quit and apply elsewhere.

I agree. I cannot think of a single situation where an adult with no pre-existing anxiety/MH condition would have to keep doing something that made them feel so awful that they throw up in anticipation.

It is a good lesson that you won’t like everything in life but this is an extreme. I would definitely work with school to find a solution but in the meantime, would not be forcing her to attend

I hated swimming with school, hated the dirty communal changing rooms at the local pool we went to, felt so self conscious getting changed with my classmates and I could never warm up properly after. I also would stress about it at home. My mum supported me withdrawing I won’t forget that, she made me do other things at school that I had anxiety with such as presentations in front of the class so it’s not like she just gave into me all the time. She just understood there was more to it than just not liking it. I was having private lessons outside of school so she just wrote a letter saying the lessons were in the evenings of the same day of the school lessons and she didn’t want me having two lessons a day.

As someone still self conscious about being naked around others I do sort of agree with the poster who likened it to sexual abuse. Does seem a bit weird to force someone into what is basically their underwear when they don’t want to. I actually still get those horrible feelings when I think back to it, and this was over 20 years ago!

For anxious kids school is basically years of having to do things that scare you. Let your daughter have swimming off, especially as she’s having private lessons, it’s a life skill that she’s learning so very different from say withdrawing from maths. There’s very few careers where she’d need to list swimming on a CV!

My dd2 and ds were both very adept at being sick when they were given food they didn't like or being made to stay in their bed. In the end I just used to give them a sick bowl and no attention. Obviously this is a different issue but some children know what to do to manipulate a situation. I will add both dd2 and ds have grown up into well rounded adults despite my 'mistreatment' and now love staying in bed all night.

I've bought my DD an adult body wrap towel for swimming lessons. She pops her arms out of the costume, velcros the towel round herself then gets changed under it.

I got it from M&S.

It might help your daughter.

I swim a lot at my local pool and sometimes at the same time as school lessons. Honestly I would hate swimming too if I had to endure what they have to endure. Lots of standing around and been shouted at.

If a job caused someone so much distress that they were throwing up before shifts, i'd be helping them quit and apply elsewhere

Then that would be classed as constructive dismissal. A job should be adjusted under the equalities act.

@Jewel1968 Is public swimming allowed when it's school swimming lessons?

All our local pools that have school swim lessons close to the public in those times, I assumed it was a safe guarding requirement and was a mandatory requirement.

Adjusted for what?

It is.

As a school swimming teacher it's part of the curriculum they should be attending, its not just about learning to swim but water safety. If everyone kept their kids off because they didn't want to attend. We could potentially have many without been able to swim, or swim well. We had the parents not want them to go because they scared of water they should be going. I do believe kids shouldn't be opting out of PE or other elements of the curriculum. What happens when she goes to senior school and its PE? As for those posters who say we don't teach them to swim, how would you know? We do 2 weeks blocks. I had none swimmers swim 10 metres frontcrawl and got several doing 25 metres. The frequency of how many times they attend is down to the school not us. Some come more than others. It's frustrating when posters dont have any idea what we actually do in these sessions, how we teach, educate and also make it.

We also aren't all awful we like to have fun with the emphasis that swimming should be just that fun.

I do wonder if there is some reason that the OPs DD is keeping quiet about, given having swum elsewhere. Bullying, something unpleasant about the venue, to give two examples.

Hating your job isn't covered under the equalities act.

'Resilience' is a word that seems to mean obedience in schools. Real resilience building would be when flexibility is shown by the school in working with a child through a problem. Unfort some teachers seems to think it means: just get on with it. Not surprisingly also the easier option for schools.

Yes if an adult was so stressed at work they were throwing up, saying just get on with it would be classed as workplace bullying

I'm flabbergasted!

It sounds insane?
My dd only ever had half an hour once a week.

I'd get a doctor note for this and put an immediate stop to it.

I would never force a child through this never. Its counter productive.

Yy mud in a puddle!

She can already swim! What good can possibly come of this?

This is one of those occasions where you engage your own brain, and don’t get railroaded into “following the system”.

I can’t believe people are suggesting that a small child should be put through this because some bright spark somewhere wrote it down on a piece of paper and called it ‘the curriculum’!

@Wheelz46 in my pool it is. 2 lanes are taken up by school and the rest for public swimming. The changing rooms are huge and they have special large changing rooms for school kids. Their teachers are always with them, nagging them to get dressed etc...

On the swimming teaching itself, I struggle to think how any of them learn to swim. And they seem to spend very little time in the water. I see lots of different schools.