Scared of water - help!

[Plantbasting]

I really hope someone can help me with this.

My ten-year-old can’t swim. He has been scared of water since he was a toddler, we think linked to an occasion when slipped under the water during the bath time (my husband was supervising and pulled him straight out).

Pool time has always been fraught. Ankle-deep is acceptable but he hates water fights, and accidentally being splashed. During school swimming lessons he received extra attention but for weeks on end all he did was put his chin and mouth in the water to blow bubbles.

He’ll be starting secondary school in September at a school with a swimming pool. My husband took him to the pool a few weeks ago and again he put his chin in the water. Since then he seems to have regressed. He cries - absolutely sobs - when we suggest going to the pool. I booked a one-to-one with a specialist swimming teacher but he broke his heart when I mentioned it.

Has anyone dealt with this before? What did you do? Thank you.

Sorry no advice but just to reassure you I am in the same boat with my 10 year old. I feel AWFUL that she is a non swimmer. I have managed to take her a couple of times swimming myself and she will go in with a noodle but absolutely will not put her head under.
She did have some one to one lessons with a lovely lady and I feel if we had carried that on MAYBE she would have been ok eventually but unfortunately it was too expensive and we could no longer afford it.
I feel like I've missed our chance now she's old enough to know her own mind.
Does the pool at your child's school form part of the PE curriculum?

Thank you.

It’s so awful, isn’t it.

Swimming is very important at the school with lessons every week. At this rate he absolutely will not get in the water.

I honestly don’t know what to do.

I’m thinking of looking into therapy but not sure where to start. My husband thinks hypnotherapy but I’m really not sure about that. I don’t have much confidence in it.

Hey, have you tried the sea? He could paddle in and slowly get deeper as he got more comfortable, plus its easier to float/swim in salt water xx

Has he had 1-1 lessons?

I’ve booked them but he sobs soon as I mention it. Refuses to go. 🤷🏻‍♀️

He was more willing when he was younger - would at least do the fun waves thing with his dad - but now refuses to go in at all. I can’t overstate how unwilling and terrified he is.

I don’t think you’ve missed the boat necessarily, plenty of people learn to swim as adults.
lots of people don’t like being splashed either, that’s not unreasonable.
It does sound as if it’s become A Thing in his head that is perhaps bigger than the original issue and some kind of therapy might well help with that.

CBT might be helpful in terms of explaining self reinforcing cycles.
Hypnotherapy might also be useful in a different way.

if swimming is a big thing in his high school, I would be having a word before he goes up about what their plan would be and whether he can just sit out of those lessons if you are dealing with it at home.
school swimming can be awesome but can also be brutal so might not help.

Sorry, the other thing I was going to say is that you do need some buy in from him, whatever it takes really, bribery or whatever.
I would also have a fairly low goal - be able to keep yourself afloat for x time, not expect to see you swim a mile!
because the main thing is, if he fell in he can not panic & keep his head up until help comes.

I'm wondering if you've made it into a bigger thing that it needed to be. I'm saying this as an mid 40s adult who has managed just fine in life without being able to swim.

Could it be something as simple as the water is too cold? My kids had lessons at the local high school and we had to stop cos the water was always freezing!

Personally, I'd stop pushing it for a while. Therapy could help but then you stand the risk of once he knows its about swimming, there then becomes a standoff over therapy too.

Swimming lessons and bottled water. The two biggest scams of the last20 years.