Wednesday – Not My Favorite Day of the Week

Wednesdays are my least favorite day of the week. They are “swimming lesson day.” The day I have to make sure we’re all fed and dressed and ready to go by 8:30 (we are so spoiled now that Miss doesn’t go to preschool anymore). The day I have to break it to Lass over breakfast that we have to hurry and get ready because Miss has swimming lessons. The day she cries because her sister’s swimming lesson means she and Sis get dropped off at the drop-in childcare at our YMCA for an hour (she loves it there when Miss goes in with her, but can’t stand that she can’t come to swimming lessons). The day I am most likely to act like a crabby jerk of a mom because we are in a hurry and Lass changes her outfit three times and Miss has a fit when getting in the car because she forgot to grab the six thousand toys she wants to bring with her.

Man, I hate Wednesdays.

I was not my best mom self today. Hate that feeling. Blech.

Happily, Miss is doing great in her swimming lessons.

She doesn’t like getting her face wet much, and she won’t jump in by herself. But she can swim and float with a float belt on. She’s great at kicking. And she does put her face in the water and blow bubbles, when she has to.

I got really spoiled in the summer when she took lessons from an awesome teacher. Since then I have been really frustrated with her instructors. I don’t want to be that mom who complains to her kid’s teacher about every little thing or tries to tell the teacher how to teach the class. But it is really annoying to spend six weeks taking my kid to lessons with a teacher who is just not really helping her learn that much.

For example, in her last session of swimming, the instructor tried to get her to jump into the water, but he wouldn’t let her grab his hand. Even in the first class, on the first day she met him, when she has no rapport or trust established with this random guy, he wouldn’t let her grab his hand to jump in the pool. She never did seem to feel very comfortable with this guy, and she didn’t learn much during the six-week class.

This time around, her teacher has been pretty much the same about the jumping-in-the-water thing. Today she let Miss grab her hand (pic above), but typically she hasn’t. Not only did she not let her grab her hand in previous classes, but she actually grabbed Miss’s float belt several times and jerked her into the water when she hesitated. I am not a fan. But, though Miss didn’t really like this, she didn’t seem to be too freaked out by it. She enjoys swimming and she liked her teacher well enough, so I never said anything about it. Again, I don’t want to be that mom.

But now we’ve finished six more weeks of lessons and Miss has barely learned any more than what she was doing at the end of last summer. Today she got her “report card,” and there were tons of things on it that she did not “pass.”

Now, I have to say, I truly don’t care if she moves to the next class. I don’t care if there are things she hasn’t learned to do yet, as long as she is learning and progressing and having fun. I’m not one of those parents who sits on the sidelines watching one of my child’s activities and getting all flustered if she makes a mistake or doesn’t execute a skill perfectly. Usually I just smile and nod, give some encouragement, or acknowledge that I’m watching her.

BUT it really frustrates me when her teacher says that she hasn’t learned to do essential skills for the class, but the teacher never attempted to teach those skills. Especially when they’re skills that Miss learned to do, and passed, on her “report card” from last summer.

This time around, she didn’t pass bobbing three times under water. The teacher never tried to get her to do this. She did it last summer.

She didn’t pass learning to dive from a seated position. They were never taught this during this session of classes. Last summer, with authority:

This time she didn’t even pass floating on her back by herself for five seconds with a float belt. She certainly did that last summer, and I think in the fall as well. This time her teacher never attempted to have her do this, until today. Before today they spent way too much time floating around the pool lying on their backs on these ridiculously huge “kick boards” with just their feet dangling off the ends so they couldn’t really even kick effectively.

Today when Miss’ teacher finally tried to get her to float on her back by herself, of course she did it, and her teacher looked at me with this proud smile and said, “We have a floater!” I just smiled back and gave a thumbs up, while what I really wanted to say was, “You think you taught her that??? She’s been doing that for nine months!”

She didn’t pass “jump in pool and swim back to the side, unassisted.” This is probably her very least favorite thing to do, and I’m not sure if she would have passed it this time, no matter who was teaching her. But last summer she was really making progress on it and becoming more comfortable, instead of getting super nervous because of being expected to jump in, with no help, with a person who was essentially a stranger, at least at first.

One of her old teachers helping her learn to jump in and swim back to the side:

I know, even with all my protesting that I’m trying not to be “that mom,” by writing this post, I’m kind of being “that mom.” And I’m really not saying that her teacher this time around (or in the fall) was a bad teacher. She connected with the kids and Miss had a lot of fun with her. She was extremely encouraging. In her defense, she didn’t know that Miss had previously competed these skills successfully. I’m sure she had her reasons for doing things the way she did.

And the thing is, as I said above, I’m not frustrated that Miss didn’t pass to the next level or that there were things on her report card that she isn’t able to do yet. I’m not trying to say that my child is an amazing swimmer and should be moved to the “Eel” class right away. I’m not saying (or thinking) that her teacher is an idiot for not recognizing her skill.

What frustrates me is that I truly don’t know what her skill level is, or could be, at this point. Her teacher did not help her to reach her potential, so I don’t know what she can do. I do know that there are things she was never challenged to do, that her teacher said she did not pass, but that she has passed in previous classes. I want my kids to have the experience of being around people who bring out the best in them and challenge them to reach their limits, so they can expand those limits.

In the grand scheme of things, I know this is not a big deal. Miss doesn’t know the difference, because I’ve never even talked to her about “passing” to the next class. She doesn’t care. She loves the water. She enjoyed her class and is probably becoming a stronger swimmer simply through more exposure to swimming. She’ll take the same class again, and that’s okay.

And I’ll sleep better tonight for having vented all this ridiculous “swimming lesson drama” here.

One thing Miss did get from this class that she was too scared to do in the summer was a trip down the water slide.

She was terrified of that thing in the summer. This time she was a little bit nervous the first time, but then practically dragged her teacher back up the stairs for another turn. She told me at bed time it was her favorite part of her day.

I’m happy someone loves Wednesdays.