This may be a silly question. Has your child ever been reduced to tears in a swimming lesson?

[ekra]

My dd1 is 4.5 She started swimming lessons in January. A few weeks ago she moved from the water confidence class to level 1 where they start to learn to swim without aids.

After her lesson yesterday, the teacher approached me to confirm that DD1 was repeating level 1. She's not. The teacher said that explains why she got tearful everytime the teacher asked her to do something without floats. All the other children are repeating level 1. The teacher said it's got to a stage where the children have to be making progress, if they are repeating the class.

I'm guessing she was quite stern with DD1. She's not one to cry usually in these situations. She responds well to gentle encouragement. I don't suppose she's ever been in a situation where she's had someone she doesn't know well act sternly with her.

DD1 seemed happy enough about the situation so I didn't make a big deal about it. Plus, it sounds like an admin. error caused the teacher to treat DD1 differently.

But still, I am slightly concerned. I have witnessed swimming teachers on other occasions, in other swimming pools, being stern and overbearing. I would not want my dd1 to attend lessons with a teacher like that. It might end up turning her off swimming. Level 1 takes place in a small splash pool where parents cannot watch so I have no way of knowing what this teacher is like when she is teaching.

I don't have a question as such but I am writing this to guage what is normal and find out what other parents think.

Thank you

I withdrew my (rather sensitive) ds from swimming lessons as he was reduced to tears every week by the nsructor who obviously did not have a 'way' with children, or appear to even like them much...

The problems was exacerbated by the fact that his lesson was quite late in the day (6pm) and he was knackered and less resiliant and she gave too many commands at once for him to deal with.
We had a break for a term and things improved a bit (I think instructor knew she had gone a bit too far as she was noticably more patient when we returned. That and the hard stares I threw her...)