Swim lessons?

chardonnay24 · May 2014

I have been taking Mommy & Me swim classes with my 3 year old since he was an infant. Now that he's 3, he's too old for the parent/child classes so I signed him up for regular lessons. I was worried about his success in the class because a) he is very comfortable in the water and has zero sense of danger and b) struggles with auditory processing, so I was worried that he wouldn't be able to follow directions and listen to his instructor in the class. Luckily, our parks and rec department has special needs services, so I called and arranged to have a one on one aide in the pool with him, to help keep him safe and following directions in the pool. They provided an extra instructor, but the first class was a complete disaster. He just kind of did his own thing and kept jumping in, getting out and running along the pool deck, and at one point, the instructors were both not paying attention and he wandered off into the deep end, where another instructor luckily saw him and scooped him up. The instructors told me that they would just assign one instructor to him to keep him safe and on track, but on his second lesson, they didn't even attempt to engage him with the group. He just did his own thing and the instructor followed him around and kept him from drowning.

I think he was just really overstimulated from the huge pool, tons of kids, lots of lessons going on at once, noise level, etc. I asked his OT if there was anything we could do to make the lesson easier, and she said to try heavy work and joint compressions and/or brushing before the lesson. We tried both, but he was still all over the place and it was really hard for him to focus. Any suggestions? I looked into private lessons but I can't find anything for less than $55/hour. And honestly, he loves the water so much that I think it'd be hard for him to focus and actually learn anything in private lessons. I really don't want to sign up for a session of private lessons and end up with a kid that still can't swim after paying all that money. Should I wait until he's a little older? Stick out the group lessons and hope they get easier? He goes to a typical preschool and takes tumbling classes, so I know that he IS capable of being successful in a group setting.

He has an educational diagnosis of ASD but his team at the children's hospital (dev. pedi, OT, and SLP) do not think that he will get a medical diagnosis when we have him evaluated this July. They suspect that we are looking at SPD, but he hasn't been officially diagnosed.

abs05 · May 2014

Is there another place that offers swim lessons? It seems like the teachers are letting him run the show which is bad idea for any three year old!

We do private swim lessons and they have been amazing. We qualify for the special needs classes which are half price. Otherwise there would be no way to afford them! She did fine in small group, too, before we switched classes, but she has learned more with the one on one instruction. DD gets distracted in class and wants to do what the bigger kids are doing but her teacher does a great job of keeping her focus on track. Really, I would just look around a bit more and see if you can find a better fit.

august06mom · May 2014

3 is still young for actually being able to swim. I believe it's closer to 5 before kids can swim proficiently. While I wouldn't necessarily give up, because water safety is crucial (esp for a kid with no fear), I wouldn't expect to see independent swimming for another year or two. I would personally save my money and do private lessons then.

thefuturemrskudla · May 2014

The first priority is to make sure DS has water survival skills. Search on ISR water safety, find a certified instructor in your area. He or she will teach your child to roll on his back to float, and the roll and swim for the side of the pool. The idea is teach what is needed to survive an accidental fall into water. My son did the water safety class. Now, he is learning the back stoke.

mtendere · May 2014

We had a bad group swim lesson experience, too, where my girl (later diagnosed with ASD, but wasn't at the time) just wouldn't (couldn't?) participate. We decided to do private lessons because she loves the water so much and she has to learn how to swim. It's just not an option for us to let that go, especially since my mom's house is right near water and she visits there a lot. Anyway, we went through 2 private instructors who also couldn't figure out how to deal with her well before we ended up with the head of aquatics at the YMCA (ours has very reasonable rates for private lessons, especially for members) and he has been just amazing. He has some limited experience with other special needs kids and understood quickly that he needed to figure out different ways to motivate her and build relationship before she would do a thing. She tends to learn in spits and starts. we think she is making no progress at all for 2-3 lessons and then the next one she does everything they've been working on. Last week she floated on her back, swam independently on her back and floated on her stomach for the first time - all skills they had worked on for months and she couldn't or wouldn't do them. But the intructor is patient and she is not bound by what other kids are doing. Now that she's swimming some, we've decided to try a group lesson again this summer where she will be one of the more capable swimmers (the class below her actual skill set), so we think it may be good for her, both technically and socially. But, her teacher said that if it doesn't go well after the first lesson or two, we'd just pull her and go back to private. Good luck figuring it out!

Happy2bNappy · May 2014

DS has hearing loss, last summer I was a bit hesitant to put him in group swimming classes I signed him up anyway as there were no other options. Of course he cannot wear his hearing aids during lessons so I was hoping he would just copy what the others were doing. That was not to be, he wanted to do his own thing and the instructors let him. They just had another person who would just watch DS and keep him occupied while he waited his turn. After the first few classes DS was doing a lot better than the other students who has typical hearing. The instructor pointed out to me that if I think about it he ended up with the desired results, which was conquer the fear of the water (which he didnt have) and being able to get back to the wall if he should accidentally fall in. DS took a different route but he got to where he should be.

lite-bright · May 2014

We tried group swim lessons and had many of the same problems you're describing, although it never veered into dangerous territory -- DD1 would just climb in and out of the pool over and over while the other kids had their turn. We stopped doing the group lessons and DH or I (mostly DH) would take the girls to the pool just for fun and encouraging practicing dog-paddling.

She ended up learning to swim as an extension of that, when we went on vacation two summers ago and had a week of daily access to a pool. So far we've just been encouraging her to swim with us regularly so that she maintains what she knows and gets stronger. My city rec center pool offers semi-private (two-person) lessons for about $35, so I think we're going to look at doing that so that DD1 can start learning strokes and DD2 can start actually learning to swim.

CCinLove · May 2014

I would either go for private lessons, or just wait a few years. We waited until DS was 4 for group lessons, and he did a good job following the instructor and working with the class. He would have been a nightmare at 3. Regardless, I don't think my son is going to learn to swim from group lessons alone. He's doing the same group lessons again now, and is signed up for another session at the end of summer. If he can't swim after the 3rd or 4th time doing the preschool class, we're going to go for private lessons and get it done. He loves it, but I don't think he's retaining the same amount of information as the other kids.

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