The really hard thing is finding the right balance. “Don’t be a baby” isn’t good, but over-compensating too far in the other direction doesn’t do a kid any favors either. There are times when being a good dad can mean (kindly) pushing kids out of their comfort zones or tempering excessive self-pity.
I’m currently trying to teach my 4 year old daughter to swim, so this is very front-of-mind for me. If it was up to her, she would just splash around in the shallowest part by the steps without trying anything she’s afraid of, and she would never learn to swim. It takes gentle but insistent pushing from me to keep making progress. It’s a fine line—when I do it well, she tries new things and has a great time too. If I overdo it, she shuts down and won’t try anything else.
The emotions that make her hesitant are totally valid and natural, and I try to empathize with her and talk about them, but I also can’t overly indulge those feelings, because she needs to learn to push past them in order to gain an essential life skill. It’s tough.
> If it was up to her, she would just splash around in the shallowest part by the steps without trying anything she’s afraid of, and she would never learn to swim.
It is a very fine line but this part is probably not true. She's 4 years old and doesn't need to learn to swim, unless you really want an Olympic swimmer.
If she keeps going swimming in the shallow end, do you know what will happen? She will get bored and want different things (including deeper water).
I see this kind of thing frequently, kids work at a slower rhythm than parents and parents are still human and have limited time and patience.
Seems like preventing drowning is a key reason to start early. That is why I started early for both of my kids. Too many stories about kids wandering into pools and dying to not take it seriously.
Yep, that's a big part of it for us. We go to the beach often all through the year and usually spend a couple weeks every summer at a lake, so we are around water quite a bit.
Apart from safety, I just know she'll enjoy water so much more in general after getting over the hump. I could be wrong, but my gut feeling is that the fear of going under is only going to get more ingrained if we wait, so it's better to do it now.
I actually wish we had been more consistent with taking her in the water from the time she was a baby. That seems to be the easiest path. Babies aren't aware enough to be afraid (it seems to kick in during early toddler-hood), so if you get them used to going under as a baby, then keep doing it regularly enough, you can avoid that fear ever developing in the first place.
I’m curious whether you’ve seen kids learn to swim with that approach? There are definitely some kids that take to the water easily and push forward on their own, but I wouldn’t say it’s the norm. More often it seems like fear of going underwater especially needs a period of steady, concentrated effort to get past.
Maybe it was the phrasing from the comment I was replying to, but yes, I understand the fear. I'd just leave them alone, more or less, for a long time.
If they see their parents swimming, the desire to try will come at some point. That's when the help should kick in, in my opinion.
Take toddlers and small kids swimming and let them do things at their own pace and then have them take professional lessons when they're old enough to really understand the benefits of swimming and why overcoming the fear of drowning is a valuable asset.
I’m currently trying to teach my 4 year old daughter to swim, so this is very front-of-mind for me. If it was up to her, she would just splash around in the shallowest part by the steps without trying anything she’s afraid of, and she would never learn to swim. It takes gentle but insistent pushing from me to keep making progress. It’s a fine line—when I do it well, she tries new things and has a great time too. If I overdo it, she shuts down and won’t try anything else.
The emotions that make her hesitant are totally valid and natural, and I try to empathize with her and talk about them, but I also can’t overly indulge those feelings, because she needs to learn to push past them in order to gain an essential life skill. It’s tough.