What do you do if your DC hates swimming?

[autumnalface]

Hv been taking 5-year-old DD to swimming lessons for a year. They are an ordeal for both of us....she loathes putting her face in the water and will cry rather than do that. I sit on the side, feeling miserable. She doesn't seem to have progressed in group lessons, despite the teachers changing at the local leisure centre (I'm not sure how good the teaching is tbh) - she's still in armbands. What do I do? It's not like ballet or football or something like that - I feel swimming is a lifeskill you've got to learn. But I hate to see her so unhappy. Ironically I took her swimming when a baby and she didn't much like it then either....oh dear.

How often does your DD get to go swimming without it being a swimming lesson? Does she have regular experience of having fun and larking about in water as opposed to being the focus of lessons? I don't have a solution, we're in the midst of a similar situation ourselves, but we seem to have turned a corner having had a few occasions during holidays and weekends-away where we went to pools just to have fun, especially with similar-aged friends - and this seems to have made swimming seem less like an ordeal and more something to be looked forward to now we are back home...

Good point IrisWildThyme it is only lessons at the moment. We have had some fun in the water on holidays, but probably not as often as we should have...

My dd2 was like this. i took her out of lessons for a year, then got her a week's one on one private lessons in the summer holidays. Then we went on holiday with a pool and encouraged her to swim a little on her own every day until she could do a width.

It was a very slow process but it speeded up massively when some friends visited and dd wanted to keep her end up in front of them, suddenly she was jumping in and swimming lengths.

I think you should stop the lessons for now. You're both hating them and although swimming is a life skill. Five is very young and there's still plenty of time to master it. I know a couple of adults who still can't swim because they were traumatised as children and, conversely, when I posted once on here about similar dilemma someone said Mark Spitz was terrified of water and wouldn't dip a toe in until he was 7. Good luck.

need to make it fun. There's no point otherwise.

mrsshackleton thank you for such an understanding post. And lovely to hear that someone in the same situation....it makes me feel much less despairing.
I can't say how relieved I would feel not to have to go through the weekly endurance test...

and yes lljkk you're right

I'd also say give her a break for a bit, then try a few one-to-one lessons (or one-to-two if she has a friend at the same level) - obviously lessons are vastly more expensive that way, but DS made more progress in six weeks of private swimming lessons (him and one friend) than in several years of large group lessons.

Seeing swimming as fun is also important - is there anything like one of those indoor water park places, with artificial waves & waterslides etc, within day-trippable distance of you? Or just take her to the normal pool occasionally for fun splash around with those foam noodles and so on.

Do you live by the sea or a river or a canal?

Do you have a swimming pool?

If not, then why is learning to swim at 5 an important life skill?

Oh I 100% agree it's an important life skill, but no 5yo is going to be motivated by that reason. And you can't "make" someone so reluctant learn. Must make it fun. Sociable ideally, too.

thanks exexpat I'll have a look at fun pools around there. And yes lljkk I agree I can't sell it as 'this is very important'. Curlew no I don't have a swimming pool or live by the sea (I wish), I suppose what I was trying to say is that it's something important to learn for her own safety, and I thought better to learn it sooner than later. Thanks for all those who reassured me from their own experience that I could leave it later....