With the Dog Days of Summer upon us and this incredible heat wave, everyone is taking to the water. And that reminds me of how I got my 3 kids to lose their fear of water.
We had just bought an above-ground swimming pool, and at 4 feet deep, it was deep enough for the kids. But they had this fear of getting their face wet. And that was more than enough to stop them from embracing the water.
The solution: I took about 10 quarters and threw them into the pool. It took about 30 seconds for the first one to go under the water, open his eyes and grab a quarter. The other two followed instantly to get their share.
And their fear of water? What fear? They forgot about it and with a fist of quarters began to enjoy the water. They put their faces underwater without goggles and swam under water as much as on top. Learning how to swim was easy after that.
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It’s true, though I have to say that chlorine stung (mind you, a fistful of quarters meant popsicles from the corner store, which was totally worth stinging eyes.)
After I had almost drowned when I was 4 years old, my mom signed me up for swimming lessons when I was 5 with the swimming instructor for the Barbados coast guard. With a life-belt strapped around my waist, I was in deep, salt water with waves bouncing in my face learning the breast stroke (along with a bunch of aspiring coast guard recruits who were learning life-saving, water rescue skills). While I could do the strokes well, I couldn’t float, so the lessons were a bust.
One day, at the age of 10, I was experimenting in the water and I discovered that if I put my head in the water faced down with my arms and legs spread-eagle, I could float. I spent a day teaching myself how to float first face down, then on my back. By the next day, I could swim since I knew how to do the breast stroke.
A year later, we had a school outing to the beach where I discovered that many of my classmates didn’t know how to swim and were scared of the water. I gave a lesson on how to float to about five of my classmates, starting face down in the water, then on their backs. I remember how happy they were to discover that they could float. I felt pretty proud that I could teach something to others which no-one was able to teach me.
Thanks for sharing this story, Tony! Now, to get Parker to take his lessons without goggles…