About a month ago, we took our son G to his first swimming lesson, at our local YMCA.  He had been to about 100 of J’s, watching with me from the pool-side bleachers.  Each time, he would ask if he could take one of his own.  We promised that once he turned three, the minimum age level, we would sign him up.  When that time came, we did.

He was so excited.  He talked about jumping in the pool, the way J always does at the end of his lessons.  He talked about all the swimming teachers he got to know so well, and wondered which one he would get.  And when we bought him a pair of his very own goggles, he put them on in the car-ride home and wore them all around the house, even though we were not going swimming.

Surely, we thought, this would be a piece of cake.

Well, to say it was the opposite of a piece of cake would be an understatement.  It was Meltdown City – and I mean that literally, in that it’s about 1000 degrees in the YMCA pool-house, and hotter still when you are dealing with a flailing 3-year old who absolutely doesn’t want to swim.  It had all the key elements of the Classic Failed Swimming Lesson:  immediate resistance to going in the water; body parts contorting and going limp, sometimes at the same time (I know, sounds odd, but three-year olds can do that); and screams that echoed through the pool-house like a horribly played organ in an empty church.

L said it best when she remarked that at least the car was still warm; we got back into it to go home a mere 7 minutes after we got there.

Fortunately, we had a good deal of experience with failed lessons.  We tried various kinds with J when he was G’s age, and they all ended in early exits, following performances that, more or less, resembled the above.  One time, I took him to a gymnastics class, at this place run by a former Olympic gymnast.  It was filled with cases full of championship trophies and medals and framed pictures of winning teams.  It exuded potential and promise and success.  It was the kind of place that made you day-dream about your kid someday sticking a perfect landing after a killer performance on the Rings in the Olympics, and afterward explaining to an interviewer on national television where it all started.  Well, after two minutes of complete and total resistance – and the spoiling of an otherwise perfectly fine and work-less Saturday morning – the only thing that actually started was our re-consideration of whether this would continue, with a quick conclusion as to the answer: a big, fat, definitive No, regardless of whether we would get a refund for the classes we already paid for (Footnote #1). 

We were ready to make the same assessment for G, after his big “I want to take swimming lessons…psyche!!!” fake-out.  We went back and forth on the issue the whole week (the lessons are weekly).  G was no help; one minute he wanted to go and the next minute he didn’t.  We finally decided that we’d give it one more try, and see how it went.  We would pack it in, and wait until the summer, if we had anything that looked like a repeat of Lesson One.

We predicted an unhappy result; the only question was how much pain we would endure in the process.  But Lesson Two was completely different.  Radically different.  So different, that it was actually kind of weird.   Maybe G didn’t remember Lesson One.  Maybe we prepped him better (but we prepped him for Lesson One, too, I swear we did!).  Or maybe we just hit a few less red lights on the way, and that somehow had an effect on things.  Whatever it was, when we got there, he changed into his swim trunks, walked out to the deck, put on his goggles, ditched the flip-flops, and got right into the pool, all on his own volition and without making so much as a peep.  And when it was his turn to swim, he went right with the flow, kicking his feet and blowing his bubbles and even going on his back, holding on tight to the blue foam kickboard.  In short, he swam his little butt off as much as a 3-year old that doesn’t know how to swim can, all as if Lesson One never happened.  Even the teacher and the other parents were surprised – happy and supportive, of course, but surprised.  At one point, G’s head even by accident went under the water, and I thought for sure the tears were forthcoming.  But on that peculiar Saturday morning, there would be no tears on his little round cheeks.  That morning, it was all just chlorinated water, and I Am Proud of Myself smiles.

As they say in sports, a win is a win, even if you don’t know how you won.  We took that win then, and if the gods of Parenting are so inclined, we’d be happy to take another.

(Footnote #1:  Perhaps the only victory for us that morning was with regard to the refund.  When I asked the gym’s administrative person about it, understanding that the policy was clearly “no refunds”, she gave me a full one – even for the class we attempted to attend.  I can only assume that, having watched the whole charade, she concluded that no one should have to pay to go through something like that.)