Floating and Swimming
Recently, the swim teacher for me 4 year old son C decided that the slot did not work for their schedule anymore, so I don’t have any lessons with another teacher lined up. It’s a difficult thing to slot because there is a long wait list and my 6 year old daughter E had to go through her own carousel of teachers over the years before finally settling down with one that was consistent. I decided to just teach C when his classes were cancelled and it has been going surprisingly well.
A few days ago, I took E and C to the pool and while E was doing her swim lesson, C was doing his swim lesson with me. We started off by him jumping into the water and swimming over to me. He was kicking his legs so hard that it was pretty easy for him to get to me when I was close to the wall. I backed up and kept having to back up to the point where I was almost a third of the way down the lane. C would still be able to swim to be, but his eagerness made him want to swim back to the wall. He kept wanting to leave the kick board behind to swim back to the wall, but I had to keep reminding him that it’s very different if you don’t get a jump start in the water and just kicking back towards the wall. He eventually used the kick board more consistently.
Then C wanted to go near the stairs, so we practiced diving into the water to get rings and other objects in the water. He’s been pretty good at doing this one over the last few weeks so we ended up going back to the wall. As we were near the wall, he wanted to float like an otter, so he grabbed his kick board and held it to his chest. Then he flipped over and let go. All of a sudden, he was floating on his back by himself!
I told C to kick his legs and that’ll help him move and stay afloat. He did that for the first time and was like a little sailboat in the water cruising from end to end. He actually learned how to safely be in the water this way and take a breath if he needs it. I then wanted to challenge him and asked if he could start with his face in the water looking down and just kick to move forward, but if he got tired or needed a breath, to flip on his back and keep kicking while breathing. He understood and then was swirling around in the water in no time. It was really impressive.
By that point, E was done with her swim lessons and came over. C was so excited to show her that he knew how to swim, so he kept asking her to watch him swim on his back. It was really cute the way he was so proud of himself and also how he was so excited to show E. He really loves her so much and looks up to her. I’m glad they have such a close bond and they are able to cheer each other on (mostly!). I’m also glad that my swim teaching career is still going decently well, which is something I didn’t expect. Maybe I have to explore this path more, but for now, I’ll just keep working with C and hopefully he will learn all of his stokes in no time!
