Monday, May 01, 2006

Swimming

Kamryn started swimming lessons on Saturday. Kamryn unlike a lot of kids her age LOVES the water. She loves to swim and has no fear whatsoever. This isn’t a good thing because she can’t swim! A little fear would go far in preserving her life. Sigh. There are too many kids in the class in my opinion – six. Six little kids, none of whom know the slightest thing about staying a float. None of whom have any sense. Kamryn is one of the youngest and one of the shortest. This is significant because the class is held in a kiddy pool of sorts. The water in the shallow end is about 3 feet deep. Kamryn is just a little over three feet tall. See the problem. The water gets rapidly deeper (to about 4 ½ feet I think). Kamryn has a bout 4 feet of wiggle room until she can’t bounce off the bottom and surface easily. Not a lot. Kamryn doesn’t listen.

There are four other classes going on at the same time so it’s a hectic place. I spent the entire class with my eyes glued on Kamryn because I was waiting for her to get into difficulty which she did about 20 minutes into the class. Poor instructor is trying to watch all these kids AND teach them to swim. Kamryn just bounced outside her safety zone and he didn’t notice. We (me and another parent who panicked at the same time I did) had to yell at him to get him to turn around and “save” Kamryn.

I don’t know what to do. I want her to take this swimming class. She is unlikely to drown if I watch her carefully during the class but I feel I should say something to the centre about maybe adding another teacher. I don’t think they will add another teacher – I’m sure they are doing what regulations tell them they must and they are unlikely to do more. I think though if I can call and complain about a ballet class I can probably call and complain about this. This has the potential to be dangerous. I’m becoming one of “those” parents. Ah well. Lol

1 comment:

Tricia said...

The swimming lessons here require 1 parent (or adult) to be in the water with each kid. I wonder if they would let you get in with kamryn during her lessons??