For six years, I have been teaching little kids how to swim through the pool program at my old high school. This Saturday was the first day of our swim lesson session and like every first day of lessons…it was CHAOS! Being the head supervisor, I am in charge of everyone and everything during swimming lessons. I was very stressed about half way through the lessons and at about 10:30 there was a mom that came in with her baby and her child, who was going to be a part of our Level 2 class at 10:30. She brought her toddler over to the edge of the water and sat down by her other son who was starting to show her how he could “swim” by “himself.” At that point the father of the kids came and sat by his toddler and started to play with him. As the toddler went to edge of the deck (the floor that is tiled next to the lip of the pool) he wasnt about to stop there and his father would grab him and pull him further back. Everytime the father pulled his toddler away from the edge of the pool, the toddler would try to get to the edge again. The father was getting frusterated because he could’nt watch his other son. So the father tried a different tactic; he lifted the toddler above the water and proceeded to “pretend” to drop him and set him down again. Everytime he did this the little toddler screamed and cried and then started to smile when the dad set him back down so that he could crawl back over to the edge of the pool. This experience reminded me about the video that we watched in class on Thursday. Even though the toddler was clearly in more danger as he crawled over to the edge of the pool, he was more frightened and felt more threatened as his father held him over the water. I laughed watching the whole thing play out, because the little baby’s face expressions changed almost insantly from scared to happy. As we watched the video on Thursday about the little baby judging distance when he was sitting but not when he was crawling, I think that the father of the toddler in swimming lessons was trying to show the baby what the instructor was trying to teach in the video. By the end of the lesson, the baby laid over the lip of the pool and played with the water as the dad held him by his waist. It was a very indearing thing to watch but at the same time it was a connection for me.
sjelen05785 