To stop swimming lessons as a consequence for poor behaviour at the pool?

[Swimmingtrauma]

I’m not sure if I’m over or under reacting.

DS is 3. After swimming he went into a cubicle and locked it from the inside so I couldn’t get in. He was then shaking the door so it made an awful racket (to the point the parents on either side had to shout to their children to be heard) laughing and screaming.

I have told him I’m not sure we can go back as apart from being poor behaviour it was potentially dangerous but I don’t know if that’s OTT.

you can’t open the cubicle from the outside?

Let him learn to swim and have water confidence!
Let your annoyance be he is quick and will play up like any kid.
Bugger other people hearing the racket. I'm sure the pool staff would help unlock the door.
3yrs old is so young....I love this age.
Imagine if and when they give themselves a haircut, cut off the cats whiskas, oh it was fun years.

He needs to learn how to swim

Also if he ever does lock you out (assuming it’s deliberate and he’s not genuinely stuck) I would just calmly tell him that you’re going home and that when he’s ready to come out he can get himself dressed, you’ll leave his clothes outside, then he can sit and wait with reception staff for you until next week. Then retreat to a safe distance where he can’t see you but you can still monitor him if he gets stuck or something. Don’t shout, cagole, engage etc at all.

He needs to be comfortable in water, he needs to learn to swim and, around a pool, you need to be holding his hand or wrist - always - in the change room or not.

Children at this age can have very trying behaviours. Every child is different.

Sometimes you do need to show a child the result of bad behaviour with consequences, but that only works at this age when the consequences are immediate. Ie if banging something loudly with a bat, you take the bat away.

I think he is too young to understand the consequences of not swimming over his silly behaviour. A lot of parenting is managing their behaviour.

My Dd went through a stage of charging off ahead of me. This would be running ahead down the road, across car parks, getting out of the car. I then had to make sure I was holding onto her at all times. I did watch other parents who didn’t need to do this with envy.

Swimming is a wonderful life skill. You just have to hold onto him to make sure you get to the changing room first. I can understand your embarrassment at the noise he was making.

If you don’t enjoy going swimming with him, then you could consider waiting until he is a little older. But be sure in your own mind why you don’t want to go, don’t make it his punishment. He’s still too young to properly govern his own behaviour.

Get into the countdown approach; explain what you want him to do, explain the consequence of not doing it, tell him he has until you count to 5 to respond. Count slowly and pause to ask if he's quite sure he wants to lose the favourire car, ice cream or whatever threat. No? Come out then.

I think you need to be holding his hand so he doesnt run off into cubicles by himself. Especially if it has happened before. Man marking is the solution. Might be harder if you have another child to wrangle as well, but he is practically a baby.

Imo swimming lessons are a nice to do age 3, essential age 4/5 so if you can't manage you could drop it, but I dont see this is about swimming, it sounds like i is more like you managing his behaviour more generally.

I see! I still think you are overreacting! If the worst came to the worst I’m sure one of the pool staff could have got him out.

Before I opened this I thought you were going to say 13, not 3! Poor kid, he's tiny.

My son did this at a similar age. It was a me problem. He was to little to understand the consequences. I just made sure from then on that he didn't get away from me untill he was old enough to understand, that happened about 6 months later. They change so much at this age.

I think he's perhaps too young for the swimming lessons. I'd be inclined to pull him out for a year or two and then start again. I wouldn't frame it as a punishment. He's really too young to get the significance of that.

This is good advice!

A 3yo won't be able to make the connection between behaving badly at swimming one week and not going to the pool a week later. Consequences need to be pretty much instant at that age. It sounds like you were quite rattled by this incident but a swimming pool changing cubicle isn't fort knox - if you really had to get him out you or the leisure centre staff could have done so.

As previous posts.
Three is too little to understand the consequences and also too little to have managed to get away from you, into a cubicle and to have locked it.

Keep taking him. Keep your eye on him. It's his job to be 3. It's yours to make him understand that sometimes you'll stop him doing 3 year old things.

Is he old enough to fall for 'only big boys do X' palaver yet? Only big boys use the changing rooms like grown ups, babies run around screaming.

Don’t allow him to lock the door. Since he’s only 3, there’s no expectation for him to lock the door and it won’t be unusual for a child to have its parent keeping watch of the unlocked door. Explain why you are doing this and what your behaviour expectations are of him to regain permission to lock the door

Im not sure if he's in a group lesson without you but with a largish group of other 3 year olds...
But if he is...
As a swimming teacher I can tell you that most 3 year olds are not ready to be in a group class without parents. It isn't safe and rarely achieves anything. It is purely about money making for the business. It doesn't sound like he is ready given this behaviour so punishment aside, I doubt he's getting anything from it.

Mine shut himself in a locker at about that age - I looked up and he had just disappeared! I ended up checking the poolside and when I came back into the changing room he was just sitting on the bench where our stuff was!! Fortunately a nice lady managed to tell me where he had been in between trying not to wet herself at his cheek!

Don't let your initial scared reaction blow this up - he's a really little boy being a bit silly, so explanations rather than punishment are probably a more appropriate response.

I’d stop the lessons for a year or so. They don’t learn fast at that age anyway.

Yes I think you are being ott. Doesn't make sense to stop your child learning to swim because he behaved badly on an occasion at the pool.

It's not the swimming lessons that should stop, it should be some other consequence for such behaviour. Glad that you are someone who thinks it is unacceptable, too many parents would do nothing (aka lazy parenting) and then wonder in a few years time why their children are so difficult.

I had to use reins on DS as he'd bolt and hide at every opportunity. They work but you do get judged.

I’d have a reward for behaving nicely, and be clear about what ‘behaving nicely’ looks like (no locking himself in cubicles, listening to Mum and doing what he’s told etc).

Maybe a favourite snack on the way home, or a go on one of those coin operated ride-on things if there’s one nearby. Anything that you can do quickly and easily straight after swimming.

I 100% agree with this. I wouldn't punnish by not sending but do think he's not ready for this. I would return at a later stage.

Swimming lessons are a life skill not a treat!

Also you can’t enforce consequences like this on a 3 yo, they won’t understand it or the connection.