5yo won't get face wet – zero swimming progress. Help

[Strawberrymoon98]

Hi everyone, looking for some advice and reassurance.
My nearly 5yo DS has been doing swimming lessons for two years. He is happy in the water and generally enjoys his lessons, but he hasn't really progressed because he absolutely refuses to get his face or eyes wet at all, even with goggles. He doesn’t like jumping in either.
Our old private swim school (expensive lessons) didn't have space for him this September because he is behind, which has triggered a lot of anxiety for me. I’m feeling really stressed that he will never learn to swim until he gets over this face thing. We go away on lots of holidays with the sea and pools, so it's a real safety worry for me.
I have managed to secure a place with a new private swim school starting in September, with a maximum of four kids per class. However, I am terrified the exact same thing is going to happen again. I'm so worried that all the other kids will progress and move on, while he gets left behind again because of this face-wetting hurdle. Hair washing is also problematic, I have to ensure it goes nowhere near his eyes otherwise he has a fit.
Will he ever get over this? How did your kids finally crack it? Is there anything I can do over the summer to help him build confidence before the new class starts so history doesn't repeat itself?
Thank you!

A way of getting a child used to putting their face in the water.

Could you be overthinking this - it doesn’t sound like zéro progress?
my 5yo won’t put her face in either, not even just her mouth and nose to blow bubbles while sitting on the steps. But she’s gradually learning to doggy paddle like a champ, and no longer clings to the side all through the very expensive lesson, so it’s progress at her own rate.

I hate getting my face wet and I can swim sufficiently for my own enjoyment and safety. I wouldn't get swimming school certificates but those aren't necessary for a happy life.

Rather than enrolling with a new swim school that will just have the same rigid structures, get a 1:1 to work with your child with the aim of just building strength and confidence to have fun in the water and to be able to swim 25m, without insisting on techniques that get the face wet.

My dad taught me to swim by first teaching me how to float on my back and just use little sculling motions of my hands to keep afloat, then combining that with leg kicking. I could soon do a whole length like that. We didn't bother with the "official" terminology whatever that might be but I learned "flipper legs" and "froggy legs" and also "froggy arms" and tried "windmill arms" but didn't get on with that because of the splashing. When I was confident o my back I learned to do the same on my front with my head up. I am slow, but confident.

Take away the pressure of a rigid lesson syllabus and let your child learn what he can. Freed from the pressure he may discover, through confidence, an enjoyment of water play that eventually brings him to overcome this, and he may then want more lessons to learn more usual techniques, but he may not and that's ok.

Honestly I think this thread is weird 🤣 I’m not understanding this mandatory putting your face under and going to great lengths to induce your child to do it. It’s not that important 🤷‍♀️

We spent an absolute fortune on swimming lessons, private and group, and sadly my teens are still shit swimmers as they hated putting their faces under. In the end I gave up as my main concern was to make sure they have a minimum level of floatability if they fall in some water. I figure that doggy paddle is better than nothing.

My 9 year old is autistic and still absolutely hates getting his face wet. We live on the coast so swimming lessons are really important for safety.

The things we’ve tried that have helped:

• lots of time in a quiet pool/his own end of the pool. A local hotel lets us use theirs in quiet hours for a small fee. While we’re in there we swim, play, and (when he’s ready and confirmed he agrees) I gently pat some of the pool water on his face to help him get used to how it feels and smells. I also encourage him to try dipping his face into the water, we’ve got as far as his chin going in so far. It’s been important he feels in control of all of this.
• we keep a towel right by the pool edge (or sometimes floating on an inflatable) so he can wipe his face when he wants
• he sometimes swims wearing a full face snorkel mask - he feels more confident about other people swimming nearby when he knows almost all of his face is covered.
• at home we help him wash his face using damp flannels, and he lets me gently pat water onto his face to help him get used to it (but he’ll wipe it off immediately).

Good luck!

He’s only 4. Most 4-year-olds can’t swim at all, so he’s already ahead of his peers by the sound of it. It really seems like you’re catastrophising, OP. As others have said, being comfortable putting his face under water is necessary for him to develop good swimming technique, but that’s a separate issue from safety in the water and being able to get himself to the side if he falls in unexpectedly.

It’s very likely that he will become comfortable with getting his face wet over the next few years -
most kids do. But don’t turn this into something stressful for him when he’s barely school-age.

You can’t learn to swim properly without getting your face wet nor can you get full enjoyment out of water. Being a strong, capable swimmer is important to many people. And the time to learn this is in childhood.

My oldest child loves surfing and other water sports now. She spent her first six lessons sitting on the side of the pool with her legs only in the water watching the others but too nervous to join them. I’m so delighted we stuck with it and encouraged her because she gets so much enjoyment out of water now.

Late to thread, but in case this helps... We took our kids to splash in the pool regularly from toddler age & all seemed comfortable if not out of depth. We tried lessons with DD when she was about 5-6yo & she cried hysterically, wasn't getting face wet either, what a waste of money. She wanted to stick with noodles & floaties in her comfort zone. We stopped lessons for a while but often took her swimming with a friend who was 5yo & swam like a fish, under water etc.

DD is very competitive, it turns out, lol.

Some months after quitting lessons we tried lessons again & this time DD progressed rapidly. As an adult now swims well, joined a club for a while, 2km in 40 minutes, etc.

Have hope!!

This was my son. Up until he was 8. Could not get past it, private 1-2-1 lessons with a teacher, nothing, I was so frustrated.

In the end I got a bit tough love, took him to the local swimming pool in the learner pool with some sinking toys. We agreed several bribe rewards for things like getting his face in so it covered his mouth. covered the tip of his nose, up to under his eyes, eyes in, top of his head in etc.

I told him we would be coming back every evening until he got this for the whole summer. He was going to do it, and if we had to cancel his other clubs and things once school started until he got this we would. And I was strict. I think a parent can lovingly push a kid beyond what a teacher would. He was a bit older so I don't know if I would have been so tough if he was still 5.

Anyway it was purely a fear thing he needed to get over. I stayed with him and offered support and encouragement but in a way there was no other play or fun/ water slides etc until he did the challenge. He completed all the challenges over the course of two sessions on consecutive nights. I did question if I was being mean doing it this way but the kid was really proud of himself for doing them- I think the years of swimming lessons saying no I can't to the teachers requests weighed really heavy on him.

On the third evening we went in to the pool and he did the water over his head thing to retrieve a sinker without hesitating and just started swimming around with his face in the water looking for the others. The fear had lifted. He actually proclaimed that it was 'really fun' to swim underwater. For his swimming lessons after that I asked him to get in and drunk his head fully under at the start, and for that alone he'd earn himself an ice cream after the session.

And the issue was just gone. The fear never came back. Jumps in and everything now. My advice would be this might need to be something you solve with him, because in my experience the swim teachers can't and won't push a stubbon kid all that far who is saying no but its something important to push them on.

Is it weird?! All kids learn by putting their face in- usually rocket arms and kicking, don’t they? I’ll admit I’m partial to a bit of breaststroke on holiday to avoid getting my hair wet but that would surely be a quite hard stroke for a novice swimmer to learn straight off the bat. Also a big point about swimming lessons, because let’s face it most kids are never going to be competitive swimmers, is water safety and if he won’t entertain getting his face wet, how on earth can he practice jumping in then floating and swimming to the side, and therefore how would he know what to do if he ever accidentally fell into a body of water.

My 9yo is exactly the same, hates water on his face. We had the same trouble with baths etc. I know it’s not me as my 4yo won’t stop going under in swimming lessons!

For my DS it’s a sensory thing as part of his ASD and also the noise of the swim pool is hard for him. At 9 he is starting to be able to explain it and cope with it. Yesterday he got his face wet in the sea and he didn’t love it but he tolerated it.

This happened for us. Couldn’t put her face in at all. Swim teacher, in his 60’s, really experienced told me the lessons were doing more harm than good. To stop them and just take her swimming myself as often as possible with no teaching, just fun.
I just went at her pace and she has taught herself to swim. She swims under water with goggles on and jumps in. Just took a long time.

My daughter is nearly 6 and a year ago she wouldn't put her face in the water. She has been doing lessons since 3.5. she moved from stage 1 to stage 2 last September when she wouldn't really but her face under the water. She was sneaky when collecting sinkers in lessons picking the up with her feet so she didn't have to put her face under the water. At her lessons stage 1 aren't allowed goggles but stage 2 are.
She is now really confident in putting her head underwater and happily gets sinkers etc in the swimming pool. The stronger she has become at swimming the more willing she has been at engaging with the play elements. This is very much in keeping with her personality

Thank you lots of great advice. You kind of do need to be able to put your face in the water to learn to swim these days, from what I’ve seen of the other children in his class who have mastered it. We will try out the new swim school and if no improvement there will take a break. In the meantime we’ll try and do some fun sessions at the local pool too.