Every summer the kids take swim lessons to continue to learn how to swim effectively. Caleb is our emotional child so we always have to talk this up. Even though he likes to swim he gets nervous about who his teacher is going to be or what exactly they will be learning. He likes consistency and knowing what to expect. But, once he gets into it, he loves his swimming lessons.
This was the first week of swimming lessons for our summer and Caleb has had a bit of a problem. The first day was traumatic because he didn’t have his favorite teacher, the second day was fine, the third day was okay, yesterday was full of crying, and today I had to bribe. He likes his teacher – not the problem. She feels he can swim and he isn’t quite to that point where he feels comfortable with it. He likes to stay toward the more shallow part of the pool (3 ft. 3 in.) but when she pulls him over to the deeper part (4 ft.) away from the little kids, he starts to panic.
I can understand as I have a slight fear of deep water myself. But, this used to just make me go faster to get to the other end. This doesn’t work for Caleb as he just starts to panic when he gets to the middle of the pool even if his teacher is right beside him. I know it’s frustrating for his teacher as she has 8 other kids to worry about as well. Today I pulled her aside and told her how uncomfortable Caleb is in the deeper water and suggested this may be partly coming from an experience he had this last Saturday.
Caleb and Chris went to a birthday party at a neighboring town’s swimming pool. One of the boys from the community (not at the party) drowned and the lifeguards didn’t notice him until a parent pointed him out. So by that time, the poor boy was basically blue**. The party boy’s mom was great to get everyone at the party involved in something at that point on the other side of the pool but they all knew what was going on. Caleb came home and just casually mentioned a boy drowning. It didn’t seem to effect him much but now I am thinking maybe it did affect him more than I thought.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what we can do to help him? I don’t think bribing to go out to lunch after swimming every day is going to cut it.
**(We keep getting updates about this 9 year old boy – he has been taken off the respirator and breathing on his own but no clue yet if he will have brain damage or not – they put him in an induced coma until he could stabilize.)**
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