Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Swim Lesson #2

Although we don't have a photo from today's lesson, I'd still to post how things went. The lesson went a lot better today. We slowed down a bit and spent the entire 30 minute lesson in repetition, encouragement and praise. He cried the majority of the time, but the more we repeated swimming the more he began to calm down. The instructor's goal was to get him more comfortable and to get rid of some of his anxiety. We did lots of swim laps where we just pull him along in a frontward motion and then about half way through the lesson we began jumping in. We would do 3 laps of swim to one jump-in to ease him in to it and make him comfortable with it. After the second or third time he would stop crying before jumping in and we saw him holding his breath. It was nice to see him picking up on what he's suppose to be doing and to know we're serious when we say 3 he's going in.

Jeff and I were both a little nervous for today's lesson since he screamed so much last time. We both felt bad for him, but also know it's the best thing for him. It was so nice to see some relief with his anxiety and see him do so much better today. Yes it was still a lot of screaming and crying, but with that came calmness, a couple splashes of water from him playing and we even almost got a full smile from him. All that made it worth it and has made us look forward to next week to see how the progression continues. Next week will be more of the same repetition but we get to bring bath toys and he might start back with a few back float laps.

Yay Serif! We're so proud of you!

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