Ahhh - swimming lessons - 7 yo - anyone else??!

[PeanutButterOnly]

Does anyone else have a 7yo who is slow to progress at swimming despite several years of lessons? DS can do 5 metres backstroke and struggles to do the same on his front. He's still not confident in jumping in. Is it worth persisting? Will he still become a swimmer at some point?? We had a depressing lesson today, where they said they are concerned that he's not progressing very well and I felt really depressed about it for him . We've done the crash courses, he's been every week without fail. I know I should take him during the week myself but struggle to find the time so feel guilty about that

yes, both of mine just did NOT get swimming for years and bluddy years

we spent £££ on lessons, eventually it did ''click'' but omg it's so PAINFUL

hang in there

I did. Or at least, I had a six year old who got stuck at the same sort of level. We stopped for a couple of years. Re-started at age eight and she stormed ahead. Now 9.5 and got her 100m last week .

We switched to 1-1 lessons at £11 an hour, we can rearrange them at no cost and dd2 as come on three groups in one term from having the lessons.

My 7yr old DD had lessons for ages and didn't seem to 'get it' - she did the stage two course so many times! Last week of the summer holidays, something clicked and she went from nothing to 25m unaided in 3days, so maybe keep at it?

1-1 lessons definitely help the less able and less confident swimmers, if you find a patient teacher who develops a good rapport with your child.

OP - you just also started a thread about his handwriting.

Does he have dyspraxia?

Thanks all - IndigoBell I am having a general worry about DS1 and was wondering whether there's a problem like dyspraxia. He also can't ride his bike, not that he will practice that ever (lack of confidence). He's also only just learnt to skip rope so maybe has general problems with coordination. Another thing is difficulty using cutlery. Quite alot of the indicators for dyspraxia, he doesn't have though. He's not clumsy and though he was slow to talk as a toddler, he doesn't have speech problems now. Perhaps I should speak to the SEN coordinator at school?

Had lessons for years, and miserable it was too. DS finally "got it" in a pool on holiday when he was alowed to wear goggles and didn't mind putting his head in the water. Then he immediarely did a length underwater and soon worked out how to swim not underwater as well. He was 8 by this time.

oh I didn't realise there were other issues; have a look here

You don't need to have speech problems to have dyspraxia, nor do you have to bump into things and trip over all the time. Hypermobility and low muscle tone can also cause delays and problems with use of cutlery, handwriting, bike riding, etc.

I would say it's worth raising the issue with school to see what they think about his gross and fine motor skills. The annoying thing is, with hypermobility, hypotonia (low muscle tone) AND dyspraxia, swimming is supposed to be a great form of exercise and highly beneficial, but do they give any advice on how to get such children into a position where they are actually able to swim in the first place? No, of course not...

Do you find that your ds tires quickly, at all? Or is a bit of a slow runner? How is he with doing up buttons and zips?

Speak to school - but also speak to your GP and ask for a referral to an occupational therapist or a paed.

Does sound like he might have dyspraxia.

Think I will get it checked. Some things are coming back to me now. Like his reluctance to ride his 2-wheel scooter a couple of years ago around age 5. He just didn't click with that, despite being able to ride his mini micro 3 wheel one really well and still hasn't been keen to try that again (we got him the maxi micro instead). And when he was a toddler, it took him a long time to learn to pedal and to put on his coat. Rabbitstew - he likes running but says he's the slowest in the class. But then he is short, one of the youngest and very slim built so that wouldn't surprise me. He can now do buttons and zips.

A lot of it is to do with personality - what could be a minor obstacle for one child can be a major one for a more cautious child with which they need a bit of help to remedy (ie the actual degree of dyspraxia, or hypotonia, or whatever, needn't be that great, just enough to put off a cautious child from trying). Fwiw, my ds1 has a super-cautious personality and was incredibly fearful for years about putting his face in the water, then about jumping in, then generally about sinking. He is now (age 7, going on 8) pretty confident in the water, despite his personality, being extremely hypermobile and having slightly low muscle tone. He can swim a length or two of the pool on front and back (can swim further, although his low tone and hypermobility mean he tires much more quickly than most children). Having individual swimming lessons with someone he trusted and felt safe with made a HUGE difference. Group lessons were a complete waste of time and money for him.

I spent a LOT of time with ds1 when he was little, helping him climb things, pedal, ride scooters, etc, (otherwise translated as not letting him give up trying) because there was an obvious physical need to keep him active and help him build up the strength he needed to take part in that sort of exercise (he also needed help learning to crawl, roll over, get to sitting, cruise, walk and pull to stand). He's also had quite a bit of physiotherapy. The difference it has made to his physical confidence has been huge, though - he will test his physical abilities much more these days and really enjoys running about, rather than automatically favouring opting out. He can ride a bike, he loves his 2-wheel scooter, he can swim and what's more, takes great pride in the fact he can do these things, because they did not come easily (only came, tbh, because nagging mother wouldn't let him give up). The more he achieves physically, the more he is willing to try and the more confident he is, physically and socially.

ps I wouldn't be surprised if small, thin children find it harder to float in the water! Ds1 is actually very tall for his age (albeit also very thin), and his length seems to help with the swimming - he can go surprisingly fast. Ds2 is more petite and seems generally less floaty unless he has a large lungful of air!

You don't need to think of it as an either / or situation. ie he either does or doesn't have dyspraxia.

You can think of it as an OT might be able to give him daily exercises to do which will make life easier for him.

An OT might help whether or not he has dyspraxia.

Alternatively you can do what Rabbit did and work and work on it yourself.

You don't need an OT - but if you can afford it, they do make it easier for you to help him.

I would have LOVED proper input from an OT (rather than useless sheets of activities ds1 hated) and to have had easier access to physiotherapy when ds1 was little. Having a well trained, experienced OT and physio to help you work out what is going on and how to help, rather than reinventing the wheel all by yourself, makes life much easier. Also, in ds1's case, there was no way I could have honed in on the areas of his body where he wasn't really using particular muscles at all and was therefore developing inefficient and harmful ways of attempting to do physical activities - all I was likely to have done was exacerbate the problem by encouraging him to carry on doing things his body was not physically capable of doing properly, overusing some muscles, overstretching particular joints and letting other muscles waste away.

(ps learning the piano has helped ds1's hand dexterity and strength colossally, if you're looking for something unrelated that might help your ds's ability to use cutlery and write neatly! It was a long search, but that was the activity ds1 was finally willing to engage in hand-wise...).

As I have mentioned earlier on a swimming thread, my large extended family spend their holidays (8-10 weeks in Sweden) on an island 5 minutes from a safe non-tidal beach and have done so for 4 generations- you can't imagine better circumstances for learning to swim. And even so, the ages children have mastered it have ranged from 4 to 7, with an average of around age 6. This to my knowledge has never worried anyone- and every single individual has learnt to swim well and confidently before they were old enough to need to rely on their own skills to keep them safe.

The one to learn fastest was a nephew of mine whose mental development was unusually late (he has since caught up); we thought there might be some connection between this and his utter fearlessness= early swimming skills.

You just have to keep at it and not let yourself get stressed. Make sure it's fun for him. Let him have times when he goes swimming without expectations.

Thanks for all these very helpful and thoughtful replies.. Rabbit my DS sounds a bit like yours - he has always been super-cautious too. Often he won't take a risk on practising something if he thinks he can't do it. If I think that when he was 4 he wouldn't even enter a pool then we have come a long way. At times, his backstroke actually looks pretty good! Glad your ds is enjoying playing piano, that's great all round.

Cory -you're right, I must not get stressed! Things seems better already. With the handwriting (as on my other thread) I've managed the last two days to get DS1 and DD (5) to sit down with me for 15 mins each evening just to do some writing with me. Hope we can continue!

My son is only 6 but I can see myself being in your position in a years time. He has been having lessons for two years and the progress has been painful. So many of his friends have come into and moved out of his class while he plods along getting no where.

The only thing that has made any progress was during the summer holidays I took him every single day and actually got him doggy paddling and jumping in by the end of the 6 weeks then after the hols when he went back to one lesson a week we were right back to where we were before the holidays (I was a raving lunatic with frustration then - you didn't want to be around me).

We have now decided, as others have mentioned, that after this curent batch of lessons is over we are going to switch to 1:1. Although it's more expensive I am hopikng it will even out in the long run by actually making progress, then I will just have to be sure to keep taking him very regularly in the mean time.

I can't help with any advise really, just wanted to say your son is def not alone and I totally understand your frustration. I have been literally tearing my hair out over it. Husband and I are both divers (scuba) so just assumed our children would be little fish too so that has probably made it all the harder to manage.

I would say persevere, if only because if he is scared and you stop taking him then it almost confirms there is something to be scared of, and, because when we slowed down the swimming it set all the small progress we made back to square one and you really don't want that - trust me!

Good luck!

Thanks and good luck Oggy