It’s Monday 20th August and tonight was my Daughters first stage 4 swimming lesson. Previously she’d been progressing well on her traditional Saturday morning stage 3 lesson. We were a little surprised, and of course delighted, when we were told she was ready to move up a stage.   She’d only been in stage 3 a couple of months. The snap decisions that followed have been a source of great stress to me.

 

Choosing a time slot.

iBears stage 3 lesson was on the 10am Saturday morning slot. She’d been swimming on a Saturday for a year or so now and it’s become a part of our weekend routine. There’s a stage 4 lesson directly after her but unfortunately there was no spaces available yet. The choice was offered of staying in her current lesson but receiving targeted stage 4 tuition or moving to another dedicated stage 4 lesson on a Monday evening. Either option would be temporary until a slot became available for the Saturday morning although there were a couple of other families in the queue.  I was under pressure to choose and ended ended up selecting the Monday night slot.  My thinking at the time was to get her onto the dedicated stage 4 lesson immediately.

It was only a couple of hours later having had time to think about it that I realised this might not be the best choice. Reasons for keeping her on the existing Stage 3 were:

• She’d only been on stage 3 for a short amount of time
• Recently iBear had made friends with another girl in her lesson who we knew was remaining on the Saturday slot
• The teacher was brilliant. There was no guarantee at this stage that this would be the same teacher on the Monday slot.
• Evenings are a rush at the best of times and Saturdays have always worked best in our routine.

Time to rectify the mistake

Having come to the conclusion I’d made a mistake I phoned up and attempted to get iBear back into her previous lesson.  To my dismay her slot had been already been taken by a promoted stage 2 child! I completely understand this, we’d willingly given up our slot but I felt terrible.  I was told we would be high priority for switching when the opportunity arose. It didn’t make me feel any better.  I’d upset our nice familiar routine. We had a couple of weeks break due to holidays so I’d been dwelling on it a lot. I’d kept all this from my Daughter, putting an encouraging brave face on. She’d mentioned a couple of times she was going to miss Saturday swimming but hadn’t made a big deal out of it. It would be ok…….

Stage 4 Monday

It felt very strange being here at this time.  Almost like it was a completely different swimming pool. iBear was a little quieter than usual but not upset in anyway .  I on the other hand was churning up inside.  I’d already noticed it was a different teacher and to make it worse she was in a part of the swimming pool we couldn’t see very well from the viewing gallery. There were only four other kids in the group so at least it wouldn’t be too crowded. It looked like she was the youngest there.

During her lessons iBear likes to give me the odd wave here and there and I respond with a thumbs up. Midway through the lesson she attempted to do this and from where I was sitting it looked like she was told off for doing so. Understandable I suppose.  They should concentrate on what they’re doing.  But with this being the first lesson it didn’t help with the stress levels I was feeling. To make matters worse it also looked like they were being taught new things like treading water and breaststroke.  iBear hasn’t done any of this yet – talk about being thrown in the deep end!

The aftermath

The lesson finished and I watched my Daughter approaching me from across the pool. She looked a little downhearted and was fairly quiet.  She’s normally bouncy after a lesson. I did my best to be encouraging about how everything had gone but there was something not quite right about her demeanour.  It was almost as if she was putting on a stiff upper lip about the whole thing for fear of disappointing me.  This was heart breaking.

My two golden rules I try and teach iBear when she does anything new is to have fun and try her best.  If she does those two things, everything else works out.  She most certainly had tried her best tonight but I wasn’t convinced at all that she’d had fun.  I told her that the first lesson was always the most difficult and that she’d done brilliantly. She agreed but again, it didn’t reel right.

As we were driving home she said quietly “Daddy, I think I liked the Saturday lesson better”. Outwardly I told her that I completely understood and that it was only temporary.  Inwardly I was screaming at myself that all of this had been completely avoidable. I’m hoping against all hope I can get her transferred back.  Until then it’s going to be a real struggle for me.

OneDadsView

I appreciate a lot of this was happening in my head.  My Daughter didn’t complain once about the change in routine. She definitely had to be praised for the effort she put in.  This post highlights the kind a raw emotions I go through every day striving to be the very best Dad I can be.  I know I’ve made a mistake and I also know I’ll eventually get it sorted.  Everyone knows the benefit of good old hindsight. The thing that got me the most about this whole experience is the way my Daughter looked at me after that lesson.  She shouldn’t have to put a brave face on for me- she’s only 5!  I’ll make this right.