Into the deep: Seeing my child gain independence

By Dr. Heather Bozant Witcher
Young Adults

At the start of the summer, we enrolled our twins in the first set of swim lessons. The first week was brutal – the screaming and their terror at realizing that I would not be entering the water with them remains with me.

At first, I didn’t understand it. At home in the large inflatable pool, they’ve enjoyed “swimming.” Whenever an afternoon thunderstorm rolled in and we couldn’t go outside, they would throw a fit. At a colleague’s house, they got into a real pool with noodles and absolutely loved it.

Swim lessons had seemed like a perfect fit.

Slowly, very slowly, in those first months of summer, I watched as they both developed trust in their instructor. They were getting in and out of the water, perfecting starfish and traversing the pool with their instructors.

And then, swim lessons stopped. The program ended mid-summer, and every time we passed in the same direction as swim lessons, the questions began, “Why don’t we have swim lessons anymore? When are we going back?”

So, in August, we started up again at a new program. I prepared myself for a regression; I prepared myself for their hesitancy of walking away (and the likelihood of toddler screams echoing in the pool house). But it didn’t happen. They looked hesitant, doubt wavering on their faces, but they walked away with their instructors.

Growth. But the doubt remained, especially for one of them – my middle child.

In a relatively quick span of time, my oldest started to happily swim around, two noodles tucked under him. With a smile and a wave every time he passed by me, he was happily dog paddling across the pool.

It only took one slip under the water for my other child to lose his confidence. For the remainder of that lesson, he clung to his instructor’s neck, crying out for me or asking how much time was left. An entire two weeks passed in that manner; anytime he slipped under the water, any fragment of confidence vanished, and he began to scream that he couldn’t do it.

The intervening days at home were difficult. Swim lessons became something he dreaded; he asked constantly about whether he had to go swim. But we persisted.

After reading a dozen swimming books together and watching his brother confidently swim down the lane, gradually losing the noodles and kickboard, I finally saw the confidence building.

I don’t know how it happened exactly – maybe it was the declaration of pizza and popsicles after lessons – but without any complaint from my son, the instructor took away his kickboard. And there, with much gnashing of teeth but with a look of determination, he pushed off and swam a short distance by himself.

Immediately, he flashed me a big grin and a thumbs up. My heart swelled, and I felt the tears coming to my eyes. I was bursting with pride.

When he climbed out of the pool and I wrapped him in a hug, I told him how brave he was and how proud I was of him. “I know it, Mama,” he said and, then, for the first time in months, “I love swimming.”

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