What to do when parents give in to crying children
By Ruthanne Dorlon
As a seasoned aquatic manager and swimming instructor, I have seen for about two years that more parents have real concerns about their child getting upset during the new experience of swim lessons.
I first came face-to-face with this phenomenon when a grandmother asked me to teach her 2-year-old grandson. Dad entered the water with the child while Mom and Grandma sat on the side as I went through my usual parent-tot parental information before beginning water-adjustment skills. As soon as the child got his eyes wet, he began to scream. Mom immediately came running, nearly falling as she grabbed him from her startled husband. She pulled her son out of the pool, cradling him, saying, “You don’t need to be so afraid; you don’t need to do this! It is okay, we don’t need swimming lessons!” There was no way anyone could convince her to allow her son back in the water. In the exchange between Grandma and Mom, Grandma said, “You didn’t like swimming lessons when you first started, but we kept taking you, and you learned to swim!” The daughter screamed at her mother, “I ALWAYS hated swimming lessons, every moment of them, and I will not have my son traumatized by them!” Grandma replied, “I don’t want your son to drown in your backyard pool because you won’t let him cry!” Her daughter did not back down.
I thought this would be a one-time situation, but I have had so many similar experiences with parents and children since that I have started preparing parents and instructors to proactively handle this concern. Most of the situations have not been as dramatic as the one described above. More often, a parent decides the child is not ready for lessons because the parent becomes upset every time swim lessons are introduced. The common thread in the parent’s thinking is, “I don’t want my child to have a negative experience. It is too hard on my child! Perhaps he will outgrow it!” The parent is more concerned about the child’s immediate despair than the seemingly remote possibility of the child becoming a drowning statistic. In order to become proactive in educating parents and helping them deal with the short-term, my staff members and I have gradually added a few introductory steps that have been very helpful to the Learn-to-Swim program.