Swim Lessons

Wesley took swimming lessons for the first time at the end of June. Wesley had always loved the water until last summer when at some friends’ pool party, he dashed out back ahead of us and went down a Little Tikes slide into deep water without realizing the consequences. Needless to say, he has been terrified ever since (as have I!). Any time we’d go to a pool anywhere, he would just play on the steps or sometimes even on the side of the pool. Now that Mom and Dad have a pool, I considered it essential that he learn to at least keep himself from drowning should he (God forbid) end up in the pool again without us around.

I am amazed that he is now swimming – yes, SWIMMING! – and loving it! He is wearing arm floaties, which I was initially against, but when the instructor told me that he needed to build his confidence for awhile (walking before running here) and they seem to be helping immensely with that. Even during the two-week lessons, he was often terrified and would freak out with each new challenge Miss Laura (the instructor) presented to him, but he is now a totally different kid!

The biggest obstacle Wesley had to overcome in all this was fear. We have noticed in the past year that he has started to fear things as he’s become more aware of them. For instance, he is quite taken with tornados (since we do live in Texas) and the warning sirens we have here to let us know when we might want to get to our “safe spot” in the house. He wants to look at the weather and watch videos about the weather on the internet and asks a million questions about the “emergency speakers” as he calls them. But when the sirens go off, either during the monthly test or lately because we have an actual weather concern, he is absolutely stricken. It breaks my heart to see him so fearful.

This is how he was with swimming. He would cling to Miss Laura and sob and beg her to take him back to the steps. It was gut-wrenching for me to watch and I often ended up crying, even though I knew this was what he needed. Scott and I talked a lot with Wesley about overcoming fear. We tried giving him little verses to think about (if God is with us, who can be against us and we can do all things through Jesus), and we would remind him that God (“and Jesus” he would remind us!) was with him and that He would not let harm come to him. We also reminded him that Miss Laura hadn’t let anything happen to him yet so he was probably pretty safe with her too. I think that once Wesley trusted what we were telling him and let go of that fear, he was able to see that really, he was afraid for nothing.

He is at my folks’ house, swimming with Scott as I type. Scott hasn’t yet seen him in full-on swim mode. Yesterday, Wesley jumped off the side of the pool and swam back and forth once, got out and did it again and again…for 30-45 minutes. Nonstop. Unbelievable! I feel like we have really turned a corner here, and we are forever grateful to the wonderful Miss Laura!