Fun Can Lead to Fear

We attempted to get Matty into proper swimming early last month but it hasn't been working out very well.

The first lesson was a breeze but by the second one he wasn't too co-operative and by the third lesson he simply refused to get into the water. We found out the reason to the opposition - he choked on some water while learning to "blow bubbles" underwater. We figured that it must have happened during the second lesson. For now we have pretty much shelved the plan until he is a little older, although we still try our luck once in a while by persuading him to give it another shot. Not getting lucky though.

We also found out from this episode that Matty has a very skewed idea of what swimming is actually all about. He kept insisting that there was no swimming done during the classes. We eventually worked out that because he has been doing nothing but water-play at the pools since he was 6 months old, to him swimming consists of splashing water and waddling around the pool. After much explanation, we managed to clarify this misunderstanding. So now he calls it "fun-swimming" instead.

I am starting to worry if he will have the same repulsion when he starts formal school. At the moment, school has lots of fun factor to it. Oh dear.... he will be shocked to learn the truth.