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Original poster

Do I make DD 6yrs old continue swimming lessons when she doesn't want to go

104 replies

user1467722214 · 04/03/2019 22:44

Dilemma - MIL told me my DD doesn't want to continue with swimming lessons and only goes because I want her too. MIL really upset me as she made me feel terrible for wanting daughter to do this. She asked me what I am so scared of! I just want DD to be competent, I feel MIL is manipulating her own GD just because the lesson (30mins) encroaches on her time with her GD overnight stay with her. She thinks I should take her and teach her myself every few weeks. I think lessons make DD concentrate better. Don't know what to do.

OP posts:

Lifecraft · 05/03/2019 14:01

Lifecraft-as another keen swimmer I see your point BUT it is only valid because in our society most people can swim. When this wasn't the case, a lot more people did indeed die by falling into water e.g. on boating lakes.

perhaps, but toddlers who drown falling into ponds and the like are usually too young to have learnt anyway. Most people who can't swim avoid boating lakes and the like. The water makes them nervous, which if you can't swim, is no bad thing.

Most people drown in the sea when on holiday. They are good swimmers and completely underestimate the risk. An Olympic swimmer can't beat a 5mph current. Meanwhile, the non swimmer is sitting on the beach or paddling in the shallows, perfectly safe!

I would encourage people learning to swim, because it's great fun and good exercise. Not because of some life saving myth.

woollyheart · 05/03/2019 14:03

What does your Dd say to you about swimming?

I would go along with other people that swimming lessons are non-negotiable until she can swim well. She is likely to learn better in lessons than in occasional swimming sessions with you- but if you do both, she will learn quicker.

MIL can't be bothered with the lessons so is being selfish. You could look for another time that you could go with Dd. Then you know she is being encouraged and nobody is telling her it is a waste of time.

BakewellGin1 · 05/03/2019 14:06

My DS swam until he could competently swim lengths of the pool without assistance both on his front and back.

The reason being that I want us to go on holiday and know that if he jumped in or got out of the depth he could stand, that he could swim and effectively help save himself.

It's a life skill not just a hobby x

PrismGuile · 05/03/2019 14:14

My mum made me do up to gold and then 3 lifesaving badges and a diving. Badge. I didn't love it but I'm not dead...

PrismGuile · 05/03/2019 14:19

@isabellerossignol how is it a parallel universe that most other people can swim well? 10m is shockingly bad if your children have been swimming for years.
At 12 all of my friends and I had done our gold, which required you to swim (at that time) 36 lengths in an hour. You're saying your child can only swim 1/5th of the length of an olympic pool?

Aeroflotgirl · 05/03/2019 14:23

My parents took me to the swimming pool regularly as a kid, and I learned to swim then, then in middle school we had swimming lessons once a week through school, and in senior school, the same. I can swim relatively competently, and managed to hold my own, when I was pulled under the water by a giant wave in Cornwall when I was 12, with not a swimming badge in sight.

I have withdrawn ds 6 from swimming lessons recently as he has been in stage 1 for 2 years and very little progress (he has additional needs). Swimming teacher said it would be better if I took him myself as he wasen't getting much out of it. He will be going to his specialist school in September, and they will take him then.

DD 12 has never had a formal swimming lesson (she has ASD and learning difficulties). She goes to special school, where from age 5 they take them every week to swimming, she can swim like a fish and is very competent.

CouldntThink · 05/03/2019 14:26

Your MIL is being very manipulative and massive unfair. Of course your DD needs to learn to swim. Maybe scale back the overnight visits then.

Why does your DH agree? WTF? That’s hardly helpful 🙄.

Keep going with the lessons and don’t be influenced by your MIL, or your DH. And if your DD can only swim 10 meters then of course she needs to keep going.

PooleySpooley · 05/03/2019 14:28

Make her continue until she is competent as PPs have said.

My DSDs can’t swim and when we paid for lessons for them they were so much older than the other kids they looked ridiculous.

CouldntThink · 05/03/2019 14:29

toddlers who drown falling into ponds and the like are usually too young to have learnt anyway

Toddlers drown because people aren’t supervising them.

Disfordarkchocolate · 05/03/2019 14:30

Swimming lessons were compulsory for all my children till they were very competent. Even after years of lessons they have lost some of these skills in adulthood. Swimming up to aged 10 is needed so they are safe to go swimming with friends when they are older or can go to pool/inflatable parties (have to swim 50m at my local pool to attend these).

isabellerossignol · 05/03/2019 14:31

@isabellerossignol how is it a parallel universe that most other people can swim well?

I mean on Mumsnet everyone's children can swim hundreds of metres. In real life I know very very few people, adult or children who can do that. I actually can, incidentally, but only one other person I know out of my friends family and relatives can.

And yes, I'd estimate that my children, despite years of lessons, can probably each only swim about 10m. And they're not the worst swimmers in their classes at school either.

I was never in my life taken swimming by my parents.

CouldntThink · 05/03/2019 14:34

My eldest can swim 200m, aged 6. I can’t. But then I didn’t ever get swimming lessons, apart from at school.

Aeroflotgirl · 05/03/2019 14:44

I know, everyone can swim and every child should be able to swim, and if they can't god help them, they will look ridiculous . If a child is not enjoying lessons and is finding them hard, boring etc, than they will not learn to swim despite years of paying lessons. I found it better when my parents took me regularly to the pool and built up water confidence. Saving your life is not dependent on getting a stroke perfect , it is being able to hold your own in the water and learning skills that will save your life, not make you a perfect swimmer.

Deadbudgie · 05/03/2019 15:31

Swimming is non negotiable until all grades completed in this house. By telling you to stop lessons presumably your MIl and DH we ok with the potential consequences of having a non- swimming child.

They are dicks. Tell them to eff off. Tell MIL until she can support this important life skill she will not be seeing your daughter alone.

Armadillostoes · 05/03/2019 15:33

Lifecraft-I don't think that you quite got my point-maybe I could have expressed it better. What I meant was that in the UK we live somewhere where most people can swim, if we didn't the statistics about accidental drowning would be very different. Also, if it was more usual for people to be non-swimmers, I suspect that a higher number of non-swimmers would think 'stuff it' and get in a boat anyway. Certainly, that is how it was historically, and humans have not become smarter or more responsible.

Lifecraft · 05/03/2019 15:34

My mum made me do up to gold and then 3 lifesaving badges and a diving. Badge. I didn't love it but I'm not dead...

I'm guessing that the really good swimmers who are dead due to overconfidence, won't be posting about it. Also, my gran lived to 93, and couldn't swim a stroke.

christinarossetti19 · 05/03/2019 15:46

People who say that "swimming lessons are non-negotiable, I made my children go" do you mind me asking.... what did/would you actually do if your child, despite all cajoling, bribing, persuading etc known to human kind, repeatedly refused to get in the water when you took her to swimming lessons? I was well used to taking dd to activities and indeed school kicking and screaming but she did participate and enjoy it once she was there. Swimming lessons she simply refused to get in.

Having said that, she did swimming lessons at school during KS2 and could swim 25m by the end of Y5. Still not as strong as I'd like her to be, but I can't force her to have swimming lessons. We do go recreationally, although she doesn't really enjoy it.

Similar story with ds, except that his fear was triggered by an instructor taking him down to the deep end on a 'noodle' despite the fact that it was clearly frightening him. (I didn't realise this at the time, as he had his back to me).

At nearly 10, he can just about get himself across a width under water and has, thank god, agreed to have some one to one lessons as he refuses a group.

I learnt to swim by going to some Saturday morning club at the swimming pool when parents left their children for 3 hours with access to the whole of the 25m pool and diving area ('70s!). There was nothing else to do but work out how to swim and I became a strong swimmer very quickly. Never had an actual 'lesson' though.

Aeroflotgirl · 05/03/2019 15:46

I presume all the Mumsnetters who are saying that going up the grades is non negotiable are the ones who have taken to swimming very well with very little issues and are sailing through the grades, very difficult if your child is going swimming lessons and are not enjoying it and making no progress. Then one has to take themselves, and find alternative ways that the child will gain water confidence. I don't care about about badges certificates etc, I want my ds 7 to love swimming. If that means I take him myself instead of formal lessons, so be it. Maybe when he is older, he will try again with formal lessons.

I have no badges or certificates, I am not a professional standard swimmer, and find long distance swimming very hard, but can hold my own. I managed to save my life as a child due to being able to hold my own and being confident in the water. Due to having lessons at Middle school and parents taking me regularly to splash in the water.

isabellerossignol · 05/03/2019 16:10

I've honestly never heard of a 12 year old who couldn't swim properly after years of lessons (barring SEN). Sounds like the teacher is dreadful!

She has no special needs, and is actually very good at other sports, has very good co-ordination, balance etc. She has had many different teachers and lessons;at the public pool, private lessons, school lessons, instructor in the water with her, instructor out of the water at the side of the pool, I take her swimming. She still can't swim properly. What can I say? It's not through lack of effort, that's for sure.

Waveysnail · 05/03/2019 16:12

Swimming a life skill. Until she can swim by herself I would be sending her

woollyheart · 05/03/2019 16:41

If Dd genuinely hates going swimming it would be reasonable to have a break. However, it sounds in this case that MIL might be encouraging her not to go.

CottonSock · 05/03/2019 16:47

Is mil taking her to lessons? In which case it sounds like you need to change the arrangement.

My dd won't be able to start swimming due to her ears. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do and it makes me worried she won't swim strongly.

SabineUndine · 05/03/2019 16:54

I hated swimming and was terrified of the water so it took me three years to learn with lessons twice a week. And do you know what? I'm so glad I did learn. I'll never be a good swimmer but I love it and the couple of times a year I get in the sea or wild swim in fresh water are something I really look forward to. Don't stop your DD's lessons.

SmarmyMrMime · 05/03/2019 17:14

I only had school swimming lessons from y2 to y6. By the end of that, I still didn't have a 10m badge. I just failed to pick up technique from people on the sides shouting in a loud echoing room and waving their arms around. Being a teenager who couldn't swim was rubbish. Can't go down the deep end, can't do these activities on school camp, can't go down that water slide. I finally learned in adult lessons when I was 16 when I pretty much had a 1:1 in the water with me. After 4 months I had the technique to do my first length and within a year could swim a mile and had my silver award.

I was not going to leave my DCs swimming to the year provided at school! They've started proper lessons at 4 and it is slow work. DS1 (8) sometimes needs holiday boosters and 1:1s to nudge him along when he gets stuck. He's just started swimming with school and has been put in the middling group. If I take him on my own, he just wants to play. My chances of actually teaching him to swim are poor. I intend on him being able to competently swim a couple of lengths as a minimum. The technique is a ball ache, but long term it is so important in having the stamina to swim further. Sometimes the DCs are reluctant, but it is important to me that they learn.

Sounds like the MiL is stirring. I would not be giving her a small amount of time extra at the expense of learning to swim.

Deadbudgie · 05/03/2019 17:24

Christian what would I do if he refused to go? Tell him that he is going, we took him from a baby (didn’t bother with formal lessons until 5 spent the time building in watt confidence and fun.so it’s always been part of his life.

But at the end of the day he is a young child so does as he is told. If there is a fear of the water you need to put the time into that first either yourself or via lessons aimed at tackling that. It’s a waste of time trying to learn to swim whilst you’re frightened and panicking you’re going to sink and make things worse.

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