Carry on with swimming lessons or stop

[Coffeesnob11]

I am a lone parent so don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of. My Ds 6 has started to say he doesn't want to go to his weekly lesson. Once he is in he is fine and seems to really enjoy it but before hand he repeatedly says I don't want to go swimming. I have always said once he can swim one length of the pool we'll he can stop lessons. I am only doing it for a safety point so when we are on holiday etc I know he can swim a bit.
At this point I should probably say he is likely to be Audhd (6 out of 8 cousins are, half brother is and I have ADHD). He has inherited my truly awful lack of coordination and he has been having swimming lessons for 4.5 years. I have changed teachers and pools once but he struggles to get his arms and legs to do what his brain is thinking.
Do I push on through as he enjoys it when he is in or give it a break? I suspect if we stop getting him back to lessons will be impossible. I have offered private lessons as I can afford them instead of group lessons but he doesn't want lessons at all. I don't want to force him but equally it's a great life skill and I know once they do swimming at school he would find it so hard if he was not able to swim.

My nearly 6 year old is the same - been having lessons weekly since she was 20 months and complains about it every time. She is making incredibly slow progress.

I won't let her stop until she can swim a length of the pool in a recognised stroke, which will probably take many more years. It's a life saving skill and non negotiable.

We had the same issue OP. We've let him stop for a year and will start again when he's a bit bigger. I don't want to put him off learning to swim by forcing it, it's too important.

25 meters is not much at all if he ever fell off a boat, or tried to swim this far in the sea, I’d keep going with lessons.

I'd suggest 1-1 lessons instead, they learn much quicker when it is targeted specifically at what they find difficult.

We insisted on ours continuing even though they hated it for the same reason as you - it’s a life saving skill. Once they got to the point of being able to swim a length / being able to ‘float to live’ & other things like that, we let them stop but it did take years. They started as babies and continued through until they were 10/11 & leaving primary school.

Op my ten year old started crying one day after about the fifth time not getting to the second level in swimming. There’s no other way to describe the kicking of his legs in the water than a bit heartbreaking to watch. Dh came one day to see him and just froze. Then one day he just got it. I can’t even describe how excited we all were! He does love it and has only just moved to the next level but I can’t recommend enough that you at least try one more term

I stopped the lessons with one of mine when he was 9 as he hated them......but I took him myself once weekly with sweets after from the little shop opposite, he was doing 50 lengths in a very short time from being 'a weak swimmer' as his teacher called him, ( he enjoyed beating me, i could only do about 25). Can you find something he can enjoy more like fun inflatable sessions to improve stamina rather than lessons🏊

I doubt he is stage 7 at age 6 so no! Stage 5 is the earliest you should stop imo once they can swim a length but if you want them to be strong swimmers then it's stage 7.

I haven't let my kids stop till minimum of Stage 7. One stopped at the age of 16 after doing Stage 10, Rookie Lifeguards and then swim fit for 5 years.

My youngest is currently Stage 6 but absolutely loving it after changing swim schools and having 2-1 classes.

I should also say I didnt start my kids until age 5 (youngest age 6.5 due to covid) and I have found they soon catch up to their peers who started a lot younger than they did.

25m is nowhere near strong enough swimmer to be able to get themselves out of trouble in my opinion.

I never had swimming lessons except at school. Not surprisingly I was awful and had to repeat a year of school lessons with the year below (till I could swim a length of the pool). It was mortifying.

I wish I’d had lessons. It would’ve helped my confidence in the pool and I wouldn’t have had to repeat with the year below.

Can you take him swimming yourself and teach him? If he doesn't swim outside the lessons progress will be slow.

Some (if not all) schools will insist on lessons if a child can not swim 25 meters.

Another point, could he be dyspraxic OP. It tends to go hand in hand with autism and ADHD.

My DD8 is and it made swimming slower for her to learn but once she cracked a skill, she would thrive again.

Push through. Especially if he enjoys it once he’s there. But maybe consider if it’s a timing thing like he might feel like he can’t be bothered if it’s after school but if you did it first thing on Saturday morning he might be more enthusiastic. 1 length is nowhere near enough to stop though since that wouldn’t help if he fell off a boat or allow him to go diving or anything like that when he’s older. Nor would I pay too much attention to the stages since they’re ridiculous with pushing butterfly before distance or treading water. I would aim for a minimum 100m on his front, 100m on his back and tread water for 2 minutes. When he can do that, he can stop the lessons.

Also OP don’t worry about the fact that he’s been having lessons for 4.5 years. The toddler lessons are just for fun and water confidence and are not proper swimming lessons. Anything before age 4 I just wouldn’t really count as kids younger than that rarely have the coordination, physical strength and (in some cases) the listening skills to learn proper strokes. For some kids that may even be age 5. And that’s without even taking any potential additional needs into account.

I'd book a term of the one to one lessons and tell him he has to try it for a term. Just asking him if he'd like to try the one to one lessons won't help as he won't be able to imagine what it will be like and how it can be better than group lessons. My DD has thrived in one to one lessons (although she didn't hate group lessons before that, it's more that they wete ineffective as she didn't have enough attention). She really enjoys the lesson now, it's all about building a good relationship with the teacher and trusting them.

I think ability to swim (MUCH further than 25m), and be confident in water is so important.
I would definitely look into the 1:1 lessons.

One of mine ended up with 1:1 lessons by accident after no-one else came to the week's course we booked at the local baths when she was about 5. The difference it made to her ability was phenomenal.

In these circumstances I would persevere. If he became very distressed before lessons or started not to enjoy once in the pool, I would review again.

I would not stop lessons. It is an essential life skill that could save his life, so it's not like him not enjoying piano lessons.

I would wonder what's putting him off. British group swimming lessons can be astoundingly dull, with endless repetitions of kicking and breathing and stroke correction - no games or fun. (It's not like this everywhere.)

Or does he hate the showers? Or not get on with the group? Or find the teacher too strict or not strict enough? Changing before and after too much faff? Point being, it might be a lot of stuff unrelated to swimming.

Try 1 to 1 for a while. He should make faster progress and a change may help. And go swimming just for fun sometimes with him, if possible.

In this situation I let my 6 year old give up. Also influenced by the fact I couldn’t really afford it, it was a hassle driving across town after school and her younger brother had reached the crawling stage and I couldn’t face trying to contain him poolside every week.

I would have preferred her to carry on but progress was sooooooo slowwwww. Might get her to do an intensive course over the summer or something as I’ve always found she made more progress on a 3 day break at centre parcs than a term of very expensive swimming lessons. I intended to take her regularly myself but I find she just wants to mess around and jump in repeatedly and rarely actually swims. She has a specific problem she needs to get over and despite a term of her teacher telling her about it and me telling her when we go she still just ignores me and doesn’t do the right thing. I think we will come back to it when she’s older.

Thanks all. We will keep going. He is level 2 and that has been hard going. He loves going under the water he just can't coordinate to stay on top. He goes to a local leisure centre and the lessons are on every week apart from 2 weeks at Christmas. We go there as all the private pools are fully booked. We have struggled with them changing his teacher often. He is also well aware he is always the worst in the class so feels embarrassed when he can't go as far as the others. In the school holidays he often gets a 1:1 as no one else turns up. Usually there is 4 to 5 of them and it's only a 30 minute lesson. I take him to the funeral stuff but he hates doing any practice or anything with me. Homework, ukulele or swimming practice he has meltdowns about so I try and keep the pressure off and make it fun.
I agree 25m isn't enough but it was a far enough away target that I felt once he got to it he could take a break.

Level 2 I wouldn’t say means they are “safe” swimmers. My rule with my eldest was she could stop in school Year 4 once they do lessons at school. It’s just a case of perseverance - my eldest languished in group 2 for what felt like ages and then it just seemed to click and she was away