5-year-old not joining in

[lemonjaffacake]

My DC is driving me mad with refusing to join in. He goes to swimming lessons and we've had to switch the evening he goes - same swim school but different instructor and children. He was fine until the moment he was asked to get in the water then sulked and pouted and refused. The instructor tried to coax him but generally any coaxing just makes it worse and I try to ignore him. In fact it would be better if I wasn't there. In the end the instructor tried to get him in the water by grabbing him when he was at the edge of the pool (he was shaking his head no). Then he kicked off and she refused to deal with him. Sigh. Not sure what to do....I'm going to have to send DH next time because I'll be too stressed to deal with any refusals. If it was another activity I would abandon it but I want him to know how to swim.

Help!!

Could you or your DH take him to your local pool and not do lessons for a while. Stop them completely (as we had to do with dd) and then take them up when he's a bit older.

You can teach him to get used to the water, splashing around, having fun etc so there is no pressure on him.

DD hated her instructor. all she wanted was for him to say she wouldn't drown but he didn't. He just carried on teaching them all in the same way - it just didn't suit dd.

So we gave up and took her ourselves/center parcs etc so she learnt it was all about having fun and then the summer of 09, we started her in lessons again and she was fine. She hated the other parents watching her but apart from that, she is now level 5 and loving it.

Forgot to say that although you obviously want him to learn to swim, at age 5, he won't be being left alone near water yet anyway so it's cool to chill about it for a while.