Here's the thing. All my children love going to the pool and enjoy playing in the water. All of them, at a young age hate or hated putting their face in the water.
The older two taught themselves to swim by using flotation jackets, from which I gradually removed the floats, until they were able to swim without the jacket. I tried the same thing with the youngest, but he has now outgrown the jacket and no sign of any bouyancy at all. He can just about swim with a noodle float but even that is a struggle.
I'm wondering whether to put him in for swimming lessons, however, from my limited experience of it, it seems that swimming teachers are obsessed with making kids put their faces in the water, as if this is more important than actual swimming, and you can't learn to swim without doing so. I know this is not the case as my oldest got her 10m badge swimming with her head out of the water. She then did 6 weeks of lessons with school, at the end of which she would put her face in the water, and then they said she could get her 10m badge, which she already had before she started - how is that progress? I realise that if you are planning to become a professional or competitive swimmer, then you need to learn correct technique, but clearly none of mine are, I just want them to enjoy swimming for fun/exercise. My mum is in her 60s and still swims with her head out of the water, it's never done her any harm.
My worry is, (and the reason the older two have never had swimming lessons outside the very few they had with school) that he will start to hate going swimming because the teachers will make him put his face in the water. I would rather he loved going to the pool and couldn't swim than started to hate it.
Has anyone experienced swimming lessons where they do not insist they have to put their faces in to make any progress? I'm unwilling to pay good money for someone to make my child do something he hates.