I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
August 27, 2010
Yesterday was Punky’s first swim lesson in about a year and she was very excited.
She has always been timid in the water, and when we enrolled her in swimming lessons last summer, she clearly wasn’t ready to swim. She got to the point of being able to jump in the water and swim to the side, and she did very well swimming while wearing a training belt, so I was happy with her progress. We worked with her some this summer and I was convinced that one more round of swimming lessons would do the trick.
I was thrilled when we arrived at the class yesterday to find that Punky was one of only two girls enrolled. Her regular teacher was sick, so another teacher was filling in and she seemed very nice. She talked to the girls for a few minutes, then let Punky practice kicking down the length of the pool while she held Punky’s hands. Punky was clearly very proud of herself, grinning over at me when she passed and smiling confidently at her teacher. I was smiling, too. This was a huge change from her first day of swim lessons last year, when she hardly even wanted to get in the water.
After the other girl had taken a turn, the teacher asked Punky to swim with her arms and legs, while she supported her under her stomach. Once again, Punky paddled confidently past, grinning over at me with obvious pride. The teacher circled back and then, about halfway across the pool, the unthinkable happened.
The teacher, without any warning, completely let go of my daughter and let her drop to the bottom of the pool.
It took only a few seconds for the teacher to reach down and retrieve her, but by the time she got Punky to the surface, my daughter was choking and gasping and coughing and clutching the teacher in a panic, and looking wildly about for me. Punky and I made eye contact and I saw an expression of terror on her face that I’ve only seen once or twice in her whole life, years ago. The teacher carried her back to the pool’s ledge without looking at me and deposited Punky onto it. Punky coughed for a bit and ended up actually vomiting water on the side of the pool. She looked like a tiny drowned rat.
I forced myself to stay seated. I was sure that if I did what I wanted to do and went over and grabbed my child and took her out of there, Punky would never want to swim again. She stood coughing for several minutes, looking at me the whole time, and I smiled encouragingly and gave her the thumbs up sign. After a while, she gave me a thumbs up back. When the teacher finally made eye contact with me, I gave her a stern look and resisted the urge to draw one finger across my neck.
For the rest of the lesson, Punky was terrified. Completely terrified. After months of work, we were right back at square one. Halfway through the lesson, she ventured over to me. “Why did the teacher drop me?” she asked in a small voice.
“I don’t know,” I told her, “but she will never, ever do it again. I promise you.” Punky went back into the pool and tried her very best to get through the lesson. But it was rough. Even doing an assisted back float, something she was good at, she lasted only a few seconds before clutching desperately at the instructor’s neck, obviously afraid she was going to be dropped again.
“She’s getting there,” the instructor announced when they finally came out of the water.
“Did you drop her on purpose?” I asked, trying to stay calm.
“Yeah,” she said, smiling.
“Well, she was terrified after that,” I said. “She was on the verge of swimming alone when I brought her here. Now I feel like we’ve taken two steps back.”
“Yeah, she was definitely more scared after that,” the instructor said, still smiling like an idiot. “She started to warm up toward the end, though.”
I didn’t say anything else. I wanted to sleep on it. Afterward, I took the kids to McDonalds for Teacher’s Night and I ran into several of my mom friends. When I mentioned what had happened, they were all shocked. They said that nothing like that had ever happened during their kids’ swim lessons at the same place.
The more I think about it now, the more upset I get. Even an adult wouldn’t want to be dunked in water without having a split second to hold her breath. Punky was right above the water level when she was dropped. She didn’t have a moment to prepare. I know that at the time, I did what I thought was best and tried not to make a big deal of it in front of her. However, I can’t help but feel like a bad mother for not raising holy hell about it right then and there.
Ugh. This mothering thing is tough.
I’m talking to the director of the program today and making sure that no lifeguard ever does that again, particularly in the preschool class (I enrolled her in the younger class because of her timidity in the water).
So I’m sorry, folks. No entertaining post today. I just needed to get your thoughts on this. I keep seeing my daughter’s terrified face after she came out of the water. I feel like I really let her down.
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