To feel guilty my 8 year old cannot swim.

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He absolutely loves the water, no confidence issues. He has autism and cannot swim. He cannot seem to pick it up easily. Admittedly we don’t take him as much as we should but he does swimming with school.. he does have motor skill issues.

I have thought about lessons but he wouldn’t work well in a group. He needs one to one lessons but can’t find any availability close by but I will put his name down.

Is this really bad? Not really aibu I apologise but I’m just stressing about it now!

He loves the water just cannot swim.

Broken wing, on the basis drowning is the leading and number 1 cause of death in under 4’s, and the 3rd leading cause of unintentional death worldwide, then I have to disagree and say it is a life skill.

We were out in the Gulf in the early 60s and we were all complete water babies from birth; I only learned actual strokes at classes about 6 or 7. We would swim off ships off the coast as well. Years of being constantly in water before learning formal strokes.

I was thinking about this watching my younger two swim. It’s probably the same here. By 2-3 years children are jumping in, swimming (head down and kicking) to the side, moving from noodle to noodle, going down slides and swimming back to the side. That means true weekly lessons are for strokes and technique, not confidence. Children use noodles but arm bands seem to be less common.

OP - I would book 1:1 lessons but before that I’d take him swimming as much as you could. At least several times a week. No arm bands. And follow it up with a summer holiday somewhere with a pool where he could swim constantly.

I grew up living on the coast and didn't learn until I was about 18 - regularly went in the sea.

When my son was very young, I read someplace or someone said that drowning was the number one child killer in the UK
I don't know if its even true or not. But, the following week my son was placed into swimschool at 5ys old and didn't quit until he was 11.
He loved it, but the older he got the more demanding the class got. He didn't enjoy having to do 60 lengths warm up...not at all. he had no desire to ever want to become a bloody Olympian for petes sake.
Thanks to the instructors he can now swim, problem is its put him off for life. Even when we go on holiday, he doesn't want to go in the pool.

way to go instructors.

It's never too late.

He didn't enjoy having to do 60 lengths warm up...not at all. he had no desire to ever want to become a bloody Olympian for petes sake.

They must have been very long lessons if 1.5km is only the warm up!

My 11 year old daughter swims with a squad - a coach, not an instructor - for about 2 hours/session. Over that time they swim about 2.5km, with breaks as the sets change. Their warm ups are half that.

Contented soul, what a stupid comment to make.

As they get older, the ‘criteria’ they have to meet becomes more demanding, just like at school.

As if you’re blaming the instructors. Ridiculous!

Broken wing, on the basis drowning is the leading and number 1 cause of death in under 4’s

In the UK? Link? Many more unintentional deaths for children are in RTA
Under 4s are unlikely to be able to swim effectively with just a weekly lesson to get themselves out of trouble.

I would think many more children at risk would benefit from funding going to nhs, social services and police than free swimming lessons.

A life skill is something you need to make the most of you life, accidents aside, you don't NEED to be able to swim to do that.