Embarrassed and nervous about inability to swim

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I cant swim either...I've decided next summer I'm signing up for classes and also enrolling my daughter.

Just out of curiosity do you and other non-swimmers take your children to pools, ocean, and lakes? I ask because out nanny cannot swim and her, the kids, and bodies of water are off limits. I could not imagine taking my children to a pool and being helpless if they were to start to drown. Additionally, why wait until next summer? Take classes now, so you are a strong swimmer by next summer. Next summer is just another summer that you children will be around water with a care giver who cannot swim well enough to help them if needed.

I know LOTS of situations at community pools where parents have had to jump in after a small tot, I even have a friend who witnessed another child physically HOLD her child underwater and try to harm him. YOU BET my friend dove in the pool, pulled that brat off her kid and pulled her child out of hte water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cant swim either...I've decided next summer I'm signing up for classes and also enrolling my daughter.

Just out of curiosity do you and other non-swimmers take your children to pools, ocean, and lakes? I ask because out nanny cannot swim and her, the kids, and bodies of water are off limits. I could not imagine taking my children to a pool and being helpless if they were to start to drown. Additionally, why wait until next summer? Take classes now, so you are a strong swimmer by next summer. Next summer is just another summer that you children will be around water with a care giver who cannot swim well enough to help them if needed.

I know LOTS of situations at community pools where parents have had to jump in after a small tot, I even have a friend who witnessed another child physically HOLD her child underwater and try to harm him. YOU BET my friend dove in the pool, pulled that brat off her kid and pulled her child out of hte water.

I can't swim.

My daughter can; my son will take lessons next summer.

When my daughter was younger, we stayed in the shallow end - just as I do now with my son. My daughter swims in the deep end and jumps off the diving board.

You're such an alarmist.

I imagine you were first in line for the H1N1 vaccine, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never learned how to swim and now that my young babies are getting older I've realized that I really have to learn otherwise I will be unable to take them to the beach or pool. I just feel so self conscious about this and I would love to hear from others who successfully learned to swim as an adult and how they did so. Also, this is probably a really stupid question but can I learn a basic swimming technique without actually having to go fully under the water(which scares me).

So if one of your children is at the bottom of the pool drowning, are you just planning on waiting on someone else to fish them out, while you stand helpless watching?

This is a very helpful comment! All those other posters giving encouragement and advice on learning to swim, what were you thinking? This poster hit the nail on the head! Discussion over.

[Anonymous]

OP, I took adult learn to swim when I was in grad school. I also have a fear of putting my face in the water. I learned to tread water and do a really basic crawl stroke across a pool. But that is all I ever managed. My older child (10) is on swim team. I signed her up for swim lessons from a young age. My younger child is in lessons now (5).

I honestly have never found it that difficult to manage. We don't have a pool and I would never (personally) buy a house with a pool. I just never took them to a pool with a deep end by myself. I did take them to public pools with a life guard and I watch them like a hawk. DH is an excellent swimmer, so he swims with our older child in the deep end when we go to places with pools when we are on vacation. I don't go in the ocean when the water is rough or very deep.

I also recently learned to ride a bike for the first time! For those who didn't learn, WABA has excellent learn to ride classes.

www.waba.org