least, I write when I have some insight to isolate and share. This post won't sound that way because I'm actually at a loss.
My kids don't know how to swim. Although some thee-year-olds know how to swim, they're precocious and possibly descended from fish. My seven-year-old's lack of aquatic competence worries me, though.
Right now, he's panicking his way through a brisk four-week learn-to-swim class after-school. I pick him up, and we go around the corner to one of the district's high schools and climb down the ladder into the Coldest Pool in the Western World. His cheery reading teacher, doubling as the swim instructor, leads the kids through various exercises with the support of a grownup (parent, grandparent, etc.). Within about five minutes, Charlie starts shivering uncontrollably. With zero percent body fat, a cold pool gets to him in a hurry. I actually can't distinguish sometimes, though, whether he shivers from cold or fear. He's that afraid of the water.
At moments, he just relaxes, and in those moments, he thrives. Much of the time, especially in the first two sessions, though, he thrashes against my support. While I stand in the water, holding him under his back and on his belly to help him float, he claws at my arms or curls his hand around my neck in a deathgrip. I have tried every approach from happy cheerleader to skill-based consultant to proud you-can-do-this papa. Eventually, both because it was true and because I had run out of other things to try, I told him I was getting angry about his refusal to cooperate and trust me and his own body. I thought maybe he would comply out of a desire to ease my anger.
None of my tactics are working, and I'm starting to worry that he'll never learn. Actually, I think that he will learn. He'll have an epiphany, and the time before he learned will fade into distant memory. But today, we're still pre-epiphany, and my biceps are tired.
