Swimming

To quote a mother I met at swimming several weeks ago, there’s nothing like a bit of incentive.

Term one marks the start of school swimming and Master Five was keen to sit it out.

His water confidence had taken a nose dive in recent years so we realised we’d better get with the programme and enroll him for lessons.

He’d been taking lessons for two years since he was four months old. But when the next two babies came along the juggling act became too difficult and the swimming lapsed.

Shortly after, his dad took him down to the beach with friends while I stayed back at camp with the newborn twins. When they returned someone let it slip there’d been a mishap at the beach. It turned out Cade had fallen in the estuary and they’d agreed not to tell me. However, the sight of a two-year-old face down with arms and legs splayed was a scary wake-up call.

We rejoined swimming lessons – this time at another swim school closer to home - but it was obvious he was back to square one. In fact, he’d regressed to the point where he wouldn’t even enter the pool without kicking and screaming – something that doesn’t occur to many oblivious water babies.

Swimming ceased once again until this summer. I took his reluctant self along to the local swim school (by now I think we’d been to all the swim schools in town) for an assessment and, within half an hour, he was going under and had his bubble blowing down pat.

We went back for several more shared private lessons in order to bring kids up to scratch to join one of the after school groups. As the swimming instructor said, there was no point learning arms until they could float. Then, in the last week of holidays, the group was down to just Cade and another girl.

Then one day the other five-year-old girl could, all of a sudden, float. This was when her mother leaned over and, winking, said “There’s nothing like a bit of incentive.”

“What was it?” I was eager to know her secret – we were running out of days here.

“Well I wouldn’t call it bribery, it was more of an incentive,” she grinned. “I just told her that once she was floating I’d take her out to a café for a cake and a fluffy.”

I shamelessly stole her idea and after the next lesson Cade came home with his dad and promptly informed me I was to take him out for his cake and “fluff”.

Phew, he nailed it just in time.

So incentive, bribery, whatever you may call it, it works and his togs and towel were duly packed for the first day of school.

Now, you’ll have to excuse me, I have a date with a five-year-old for a cake and “fluff”.

Says Whangarei Aquotic Centre’s SwimMagic Co-Ordinator Catherine Bagley: “The importance of teaching young tots to swim is that they learn to wait before entering the pool when they are invited in. It teaches them hesitation and that can give parents that few seconds needed. It gets them out of the typical child reaction which is to rush headlong in.

“Swimming lessons also give young children confidence in the water. With mum or dad in the lesson it is a great way to spend bonding time learning that confidence along with water safety skills.”