Swimming with boys

Sunday 8 February 2004This is close to 21 years old. Be careful.

I’ve been doing a lot of swimming at the pool with my boys, and I’ve discovered something fundamental: If you have a child who is uncertain in the water, buy them goggles.

I always assumed that breathing was the thing that put them off, but that’s the easy part. They don’t like not being able to see, and the goggles are a cool toy that are only really fun if you are underwater. I have two boys who needed help finding their confidence in the pool, and goggles worked for both of them.

It’s been a real pleasure seeing my guys become the type of kids that just throw themselves into the pool, flailing and gasping and loving every minute of it.

Comments

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I can second that recommendation! My middle child, who just turned seven, has always been wary of the water. I got all three of my kids goggles for Christmas. Wow! What an incredible difference it makes for him. Now he wants to see how long he can spend underwater, walk on the bottom of the pool, have me throw him, and so on.
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Ned,

I totally agree.. my son Jake (5) hated to swim until we bought gogles. He's in swiming lessons once a week and the goggles made the difference between torture and having a great time ! - nice site BTW
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Swimming got a lot less interesting after my nearsightedness developed (in gradeschool.) On a recent vacation, I found something that brought it all back - facemasks with corrective lenses. Fairly crude, but "within 1/2 diopter" is such an improvement over "oh look, another blur". [Also, snorkels have gotten much more advanced since the j-tubes I used as a kid, with sophisticated drainage mechanisms, so they are no longer worse than just holding your breath...]
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I agree completely -- I've been strongly nearsighted for most of my life and found myself avoiding swimming more and more. Eventually I realized the problem, and now when I go swimming I use goggles and contacts and have a good 'ole time.
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so very true.
my kids got an additional boost with flippers... now they could actually swim on top of the water at speed, without hardly moving their arms... of course, as their legs got tired, they began using their arms a bit more... and the rest is history. :)

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