Swimming without armbands

[mamabear35]

Seems trivial but if there are any wise mnetters with similar experience I'd love to hear it! My dd is 5 in October. She has had weekly swimming lessons with her friend for the past year and a term. The teacher has changed a couple of times but she seems to really like her current one. The issue is DD freaks out when she's asked to swim without her arm floats( the armbands you wear that are like floats not the blow up kind)
It's very frustrating! I'm not sure how best to handle it. Her friend has moved on without arm floats but DD will literally start screaming and cling onto the instructor.

Has anyone experienced this? Should I let her keep her armbands on or try and incentivise her to swim without? I want my DD to learn that anything worth having/doing takes practise so don't just want to give in but also feel like we are paying for these lessons and at the moment she spends half the lesson refusing to do as she is told. Help!!

I'm no expert, but I think armbands can help with water confidence but are actually a hinderance for learning to swim. They will hold her in the water at the wrong angle when learning to float and get in the way when learning strokes.

It sounds as if she was become very dependent on them, I would try to bribe encourage her to stop using them, especially as she has been going for over a year now. Or Maybe try some one to one lessons to help. One to one lessons are much dearer, but can work out cheaper in the long run as progress should be faster.

I'd stop the lessons for a bit and just take her swimming to pools with a shallow entry without the armbands. Lots of playing, and she'll get confident in her own time.

Absolutely no point in making a 5 year old scared imo

My DS is five. We moved and started new swimming lessons, at this point DS in armbands but very confident and wasn't far off letting the armbands go at his last lessons. When we got to this new place they were not happy about him having armbands and wanted him to remove them completely and use a float jacket instead. At this point DS refused to take them off and began to get upset. They continued trying to get him to take them off over the next few weeks whilst he got more and more upset and began to lose confidence and become afraid of going to the lessons. We stopped lessons and found another swim school who used the disc bands and explained our situation. Because of this he was set back a lot, they used a combination of discs with woggles, back floats etc. it's taken him a couple of months to get his confidence back but the last two lessons he has had no discs but has had one back float on- they they move towards no float as the child gains more confidence with their body position in the water (with armbands it's higher than without so this can freak them out at furst). I guess my point is don't try to force her before she is ready as it will prove counter productive. I believe that DS wild be without any aids at this point if they hadn't have tried to force the issue. The new school have been fantastic with him and not made a big deal about it.
I agree about just going swimming for fun, having a play about in the water etc.

How many discs is she using.

Thanks this has been helpful. She currently uses just one float per arm and used to love her lessons. She told me this morning she didn't want to go I guess I will just ask her teacher not to force the issue and to let her keep the floats on. Just not sure what the right thing to do is but I don't want her to start hating swimming.

Few typos in my post! Should be
At first
Would not wild!
It's really hard. I hated seeing my little boy getting so upset after always loving swimming so much. Just take the pressure off for a bit and bring the fun back into it. Do her lessons carry on in the holidays? Our stop this week so that might be a perfect opportunity to ease the pressure if yours does too?

Ours stop next week but we have the option of carrying on during the summer. We are away for two weeks so lots of family swimming time then. Am going to tell her teacher today not to push it and to let her keep the armbands on. Have told DD she can keep her floats on but I want her to try and take them off during the lesson. It is up to her to tell her teacher when. Trying to give her some control back and see if that helps! Will give update later.

That sounds like a good plan. Hope it goes well.

Sooo it did work! She went in with a float on each arm,two minutes later she took one off, and then 10 minutes in both floats were off! She even went on to get her 5 meter swimming badge. I was absolutely gobsmacked. I suppose relinquishing a little control, if it helps the little ones to feel more secure, is worth doing! Thanks everyone for hearing me out.

well done babybear!

bet ya mamabear nearly cried she was so proud!

I get that makes sense, as my nine year old unfortunately has learnt to swim when she’s older than I’d of liked to be fair. And when the arm bands are removed she feels her back end is sinking, although I encourage her to kick with the breast stroke as before etc.

this thread is 11 years old!!!!

Start a new thread as nobody will read your post, just the OP

My daughter is a bit similar and feels uncomfortable without arm bands in the water. I want to pay for her to have swimming lessons as she needs to learn at her age as she is nine. Good luck with your problem, praise and enthusiasm I find is the best thing with my daughter for eg and of course rewards, talking to them on a one to one level asking what they don’t like… 😊

OPs DD is 16 now!!!!!!!!!!!!!