Swim lessons might have been a mistake for us? I wasn't brave enough to let the boys swim without floaties by myself but the boys are fish in the pool, swimming all over the place. Since the end of last summer they have been putting their faces in the water & holding their breathe. I thought swim lessons were the answer. Let someone certified teach them how to really swim & we'd be all set.
The boys were already great swimmers... underwater. The swim instructor actually asked what they were doing in swim lessons the first day. Swimming on top of the water was another story though. They kicked their feet, they put their faces in the water, they did NOT use their arms above water. They can tread water, but none of them are trusting/relaxed enough to lean back & float.
I signed up for a weeks worth of private lessons so every morning we got dressed & went, as the week went on they each got progressively worse at swimming. How does that happen?!? I guess we should have just taught them the way we & many other Floridians learned & just threw them in.
Since their lessons they have gotten better again. I think it's just a matter of letting them swim the way they like to & they will figure the rest out as time goes on. I limit them to a certain area of the pool now so they are close to me & I can keep a close eye on each of them. We actually went to another set of triplets' birthday pool party last weekend & they all did great. Garren, who had lost pretty much all his swimming confidence, was swimming above water again by the end of the party. Caden & Kellan really just want to jump in the deep end & swim underwater as far as they can.
On another note, after seeing them in a semi organized/structured lesson, I'm fairly confident that the speech therapist was right & that they all may have ADD if not ADHD. School is going to be super interesting this fall :/
I'm just a lurker here but had to just say: I'm sure you have a good therapist, but don't jump to conclusions about ADD just yet. Boys are active, and mine at 4 seemed like he had ADD. and through kindergarten, grade 1 and 2 his teachers asked about it ... But no, he doesn't have it. He is / was just an active kid who liked to try new things. He's heading into grade 4 this year and school just keeps getting better for him!
ReplyDeleteHi Genie, thanks for commenting! We're definitely not jumping to conclusions, just keeping it in the back of our minds. It really isn't the active part concerning me but the lack of being able to focus. I really hope it's more just a lack of being in any kind of class, other than speech therapy & it works itself out once they start school & get involved in more structured activities.
DeleteLM had issues in his structured swim class as well and that is when we kinda noticed a difference in his ability to focus compared to that of his peers. Completely understandable. 4 is a chaotic age in general though. We had a similar problem with regression with swimming while IN private swim lessons. I think it has something to do with kids figuring out naturally how to save themselves quickly in water (hold breath and swim like heck to the side...usually underwater swimming is faster) as opposed to in lessons they are being taught actual positions and techniques which can be overwhelming. At least that is the theory I'm blaming every time our CAN SWIM kid acts like a complete fool during private lessons. Lol
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