I’m sat on a plane, on my way back from an awesome 2 weeks in the sun with my family. Just the 4 of us, proper quality time. I really wanted to share with you my own swimming experience with my 4 and a half year old son, Harry.

I’ve always taken him to regular swimming lessons starting when he was 12 weeks old. From an early age he loved the songs and fun games but was never the happiest when swimming underwater or getting his face wet at bathtime. As a toddler he became even more averse to getting his face wet and definitely didn’t want to go on his back!!! He is quite a big boy and has shown signs of being physically capable of independent swimming from about 3 and a half years old. Despite always being big for his age he has always been a sensitive boy and particularly headstrong which has meant small things such as putting goggles on or cold entry showers have created out of proportion situations resulting in him regressing in his weekly swim sessions.

This has always been a source of frustration and worry for me. Even with my experience of teaching lots of children to swim, with your own child it’s completely different, particularly since the last person he wants to listen to is me!!

So onto the reason why I thought I’d write this. I’ve always been a huge advocate of ensuring that children go swimming with their parents and siblings and have fun outside of swimming lessons. In the last 2 weeks I’ve experienced first hand the benefits. If started on the first couple of days of just messing around on inflatables with his Dad quickly progressing to confidently collecting fish off the bottom of the pool. And then in the last 2 days through his own sheer determination he swam on his own a number of times (over 5 metres) whilst laughing and asking to do it again! Don’t get me wrong he’s a long way to go before being a strong swimmer. But having achieved this milestone the difference in his confidence (and realising swimming is fun!!) means I think we have really turned a corner. I am going to take more of my own advice when we get back and ensure we go swimming as a family more regularly outside of his weekly swimming lessons.

Hopefully its more plain sailing with his 19 month old fearless sister, Sophie. She loves the water, can’t get enough of it in fact. Fingers crossed it stays that way!!!

Will keep you updated.

Laura