Swim Lessons

At the beginning of January I signed the girls up for a youth membership at the YMCA. We have been really enjoying the pool so much! I also signed Sydney up for her first set of swim lessons. She loves the water and can't get enough of swimming in Lake George. She hasn't had formal lessons, so her swimming skills are limited to just being comfortable in the water. I want her to build real swimming skills eventually. The first week she was a little scared and whined a lot. The second week daddy took her and she loved it. The third week I took her and she did great again! Mr. Brody was her instructor for the first three week and he was really nice. He held on to her for most of the lesson because she is the youngest in the group and because it was her first time in lessons. This weekend we got a new instructor, Miss Chelsea. Miss Chelsea is more into the tough love type of teaching. Anyone who knows me knows that I have been a swimmer all of my life and I spent several years teaching swim lessons. My approach was also not to coddle kids. Teach them to skill build and do it on their own! As you can see from the pictures below, Sydy had a tougher time this week. She didn't like being let go of. She really didn't like swimming on her own in the deep end. Miss Chelsea stayed right near her, but made her do the work herself. My ears were tired of the whining, but I really think she will make great strides now that she is being asked to swim on her own. She may have shed more tears this week, but she has already talked about Miss Chelsea and wants to draw her a princess picture for next week (when she color a picture for someone, that means she loves them!). I hope to see improvement in her swimming skills quickly. We are going to keep up the lessons and I might even sign her up for two sessions at once!

One thing that I was not a fan of was the dunking in the beginning of the lesson. Sydy doesn't love to go under water much yet. I made her do it at the lake this summer a few times and she was proud of herself, but she wouldn't do it willingly, only when I dunked her. Miss Chelsea dunked all the kids at the beginning of the lesson. It ticked them all off! Luckily, they all got over it quickly. I would have waited until the end of the lesson to dunk!

Little did she know that she was about to be dunked as soon as she got in the pool. All smiles before she got in the water! Poor kid.

See the pout in this picture?

The sun came streaming into the pool area and I love this picture of her intently watching her other friends.

Not a big fan of having to do it on her own. She got used to Mr. Brody holding on to her! Little lazy girl : ) At least she tried to kick some.

Daddy came with us yesterday so that I could take pictures of the lessons and of the girls swimming. I can't take my camera when I take the girls swimming on my own as I need to stay right by Sawyer. It was nice being on the sidelines getting some photos while he swam with Soybean.

Sawyer really wanted to jump in the big pool with Sydy yesterday. Daddy had to hold on tight to her hand or she very well may have jumped right in.

Clearly Sydy was ticked off at being left alone to kick on her own! I put my camera down at one point when Chelsea swam a little distance from her. I was prepared to jump in after her if she decided to let go. Luckily, she kept trying even through all of the tears.

All in all, I think this approach will be so much better for Sydney. I have high hopes that next week she will whine a little less now that she knows she can do it on her own. She still got bubble gum as a reward. I still praised her and told her next week we will do it again but this time we won't whine : )