Independent Swimmer
My 4 year old son C has been doing his swimming lessons with me ever since his swim teacher changed her availability schedule. Honestly, it hasn’t been the worst thing since we get to save some money and I get to bond with him more while teaching him how to swim myself. I do miss both him and his older 6 year old sister E having their swim class at the same time since it was like a 30 minute babysitting session while they were learning how to swim (and I got to work out), but it’s been fun seeing C progress week to week.
This past week, I was getting them ready to jump in the pool when we got there. They were all set and I was just putting our things away. C usually stays near me since he doesn’t know how to swim completely, but this time he did not. By the time I spent less than a minute putting our stuff away, he was gone. He ran off with E and jumped into the pool. I didn’t know that and looked around for a few seconds in panic before spotting him in the pool by himself.
Luckily, he was floating on his back and kicking his little legs to maneuver around. He learned that last week and I guess his confidence was sky high. I have to admit, he was doing it pretty well and I honestly didn’t have to worry (but I still do). He knows how to make sure he is above water and knows how to get a breath in. We spent the rest of the day having him jump into the water and swim to me. He was even kicking in the water with his belly down and twisting his head to take a breath when needed (similar to how you take a breath in the freestyle stroke). He couldn’t always replicate it, but the fact that he can breathe like that here and there is really good.
I’ll be working with him still in getting his technique down for each stroke. I think general water safety and is more or less at a good spot (thankfully!). What I realized too is that kids don’t really have a perception of what they can and can’t do at the moment because once they learn something, they think they are the expert. There is a large grey area where their skills need to mature and that’s when parents have to keep an extra close eye on them. At least C doesn’t lack confidence and we will work on the technique one week at a time.
