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Lesson For An Impatient Parent
It took his own plunge into the pool to remind him how tough
it is for any kid to master a new skill.

Michael Laser, Parenting Magazine, June 2004

My daughter’s a quick learner – in certain subjects. Read her a book once, and she can retell the story hours later, down to the color of the monster’s toenails.

Other things take Helen longer to learn. Like addition. As soon as one fact goes in ((8+6=14), the previous one drops out (8+7= ummmmm…).

And swimming. After many group lessons, Helen was still afraid to put her face in the water at age 7, so we signed her up for private lessons. It took her teacher, Joe, less than a minute to diagnose the problem. “Did she use swimmies?” he asked.
Er, yes, she did.

He said that kids who use swimmies have a harder time learning to stay horizontal in the water. Their legs tend to sink. In other words, if Helen was taking a long time to learn, it wasn’t her fault. It was mine – for letting her wear flotation devices on her arms when she splashed in the town pool.

Guilt gave way to relief, though, as Helen learned to “blast off” from the side of the pool to Joe and – at last! – to put her face in the water. Yet two months later, she still couldn’t swim. She thrashed as if she were drowning. I started to worry she’d never get it. Why couldn’t she just pay attention, try a little harder, and swim?

Whenever Helen and I were in a pool together, I suggested we practice, but she only wanted to play Marco Polo or have me twirl her so that her knee and arm skimmed the surface like a hydrofoil. This has been a recurrent frustration. She loves to have riotous fun with me, but she doesn’t want me to teach her things. Case in point: She likes to draw cartoons, so I offered to show her how to capture different facial expressions by changing the shape of the eyes and mouth. She gave me a look that said, Must we? And suggested, “Maybe tomorrow.” At least se was polite.

All the attention I gave to Helen’s swimming reminded me of something: I’d never learned to swim correctly either. I could plow through the water, but every time I tried to cross a long pool, I’d get dizzy, even though I lifted my head out of the water now and then to grab some air.

So I set up a private lesson with Joe. He instructed me to breathe by turning my whole body to the side, instead of lying flat on the water like an air mattress and twisting my neck a painful 90 degrees.
I couldn’t put it all together right away, but as soon as I got home, I wrote down what he’d said. For the next few days, I practiced in the house – bending at the waist, torso horizontal – until I could perform the stroke smoothly. (Helen caught me “swimming” in the kitchen one day. She watched for a moment and then went on her way without comment, like a cat seeing its owner do the Watusi).
I was confident and excited as I climbed into the Y pool for my first attempt at swimming in actual water. Pushing off from the shallow end, I executed the same strokes I’d practiced at home. Then I turned for a breath.
Chah! Gargggggh! Glahhhh!

Each time I tried to breathe, I sank before I could get enough air. For 45 minutes, I coughed and struggled, determined to complete just one lap but failing over and over again. Long story short: Swimming three times a week, I made slow progress. One length of the pool. Two lengths. Three. I proudly reported each milestone to my wife. Her dependable reply: “Phew! You smell like chlorine.”
I realized the hard way that learning to swim takes time. In my case, it took from Halloween to Valentine’s Day before I found the elusive groove. The breakthrough came as a complete surprise to me. I swam ten consecutive lengths that February night, and I would have kept going if the pool hadn’t closed. Though intoxicated with the accomplishment, I also considered it a miraculous gift. One day I couldn’t swim laps; the next day I could.

I have a different perspective on Helen’s learning now. Some things just take a long time to figure out – and sometimes progress comes in sudden, exhilarating leaps. Now whenever Helen takes any step forward, I congratulate her. When she did the crawl, stopped and dog-paddled while taking a breath, and then continued, I appreciated her persistence and held back from criticizing her form. “That’s great!” I said – and meant it.

Many years had passed since I’d tried to learn a new skill. Kids, on the other hand, go through it every day – floundering while teachers correct them, friends tease them, and well-meaning parents urge them to do a little better. They deserve endless encouragement. What they definitely don’t need is Mom or Dad watching (and all too often exhorting) impatiently from the sidelines. I haven’t fully adjusted my attitude yet – why can’t Helen remember that 9 + 7 = 16?! – but when I’m about to say “Come on!” I think back to my own first coughing breath and I ease off.

She’ll get there. It just takes time.

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