Swimming Lessons

A few summers back, we enrolled both The Princess and The Dictator in swimming lessons at the community swimming pool. After the very first lesson, The Princess hated them. Sobbing, crying, carrying on. HATED. THEM.

I was not backing down, however. We had family friends whose daughter drowned when she was 3 years old. I do not want my children to not know how to swim. If they're ever at a party and someone jokingly throws them in a pool, I want them to know how to swim to the side and get out.


I told The Princess that she'd better start praying for rain, because the only way she was getting out of swimming lessons was if thunder boomed and lighting crackled from the sky.

God listens to little girls who don't like swimming lessons, because this is what the 10-day forecast showed the very next day. Can you tell which days the lessons were scheduled for?







The weather held; life went on and The Princess actually started to enjoy the lessons.

For the younger class, over the course of a few nights, swimming lessons progress from dabbling your feet in the water to jumping in and learning the first few motions of swimming. The older class started in the 4 foot section of the pool. They learned the motions of swimming and did lap after lap across the middle.

As parents, we were not allowed within the borders of the swimming pool fence. Smart instructors, who don't allow the distraction and interference of the parents. We would carry our lawn chairs around to where we could watch, far enough away to be invisible to some of the younger children, close enough for our comfort that nothing too terribly bad could happen on our watch.


Both classes had their finale at the diving board.


One can learn a lot about her children's personalities by watching how they choose to jump off the diving board into the deep end of a pool.


Take The Princess. Almost 9. She stood and stood and stood, looking carefully to make sure that the instructor was just off to the side. She jumped nearly onto the instructor, half way to safety before she even landed.


Then, take The Dictator. Not even 5 years old at the time. What does she do? (So many of her classmates didn't even want to jump.) A cannonball!




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I feel like I'm in the middle of swimming lessons right now. I'm learning skills that I will need later in life, at some point when I'll need to handle some new or more complex problem. It's for my own good.

My personality dictates how I'll choose to jump off that high dive at the end of the class. My watchful Parent is close enough to step in if need be, waving back through the fence, keeping a watchful eye.