Like some of you I have memories of my father throwing me in the water when I was 4 yo on a beautiful summer day at the Havana Yacht Club.  He was exasperated by my fear of the water after having several years of swimming lessons.   In spite of my indignation, I promptly began to paddle to the side though I was angered and annoyed.  I soon relaxed and began playing with my sisters and other children, but have never forgotten the experience.  Do I feel that I was scarred for life?  Do I hold resentment toward my father?  No!  But as a swim teacher I tell parents of children under five that if they don’t refresh their child’s skills every few months, the child will forget and the healthy natural fear will take over.  They will have to “start over” from summer to summer and if they themselves don’t review with their child up to the level they were at their last water experience or don’t come to swim lessons right away they might have a negative experience in the water and be afraid.  Parents shouldn’t throw their child in the water but gently bring them to the point that they were last time.  Watching a video of themselves or my video of children performing the swimming skills will also vicariously reinforce their skill and have them ready for their first water experience of the year.

Thirty years ago I taught swimming right here at the YMCA of St. Petersburg.  Here I learned to teach babies with the booklet Teach Your Tot to Swim by Pauline Petzel.  I have been teaching mostly children under 5 developing my own strategies and games.  Because of my early beginnings, I teach my little students to hold their breath and I don’t teach them to take a breath until they can go 8 feet or from one side of the pool to the other.  In my teaching I stress propulsion for with a goal of getting to the toy, the caregiver or the side.  If they can’t take a breath until they get there, they will work real hard and will continue to improve their stroke until they get there faster.  The reward is the achievement itself, but the parent encouragement and incentives are very important. 

Six years ago I started recording my students in order to make a research based video that would help other instructors and parents who want to teach their children on their own.  Because of time and money restrictions, students come to me for 8 lessons, Monday to Thursday for 2 weeks.  Some sign up for 2 more weeks but most have the confidence to continue on their own.  I find that there are few detailed “lessons plans” to follow and most of our teachers don’t have the confidence necessary to deal with children and parents in this area.  I also made the dvd in Spanish.

 I am a Cuban-American, and I lived in Cuba, the beautiful, magical island until 1960, and came to US at 10 years old.

In my heart are hints of fantasies of my childhood: the sweet white sugar cane; the warm brown sugar at my dad’s sugar mill; the bittersweet sounds and smells of killing, cooking and eating a roasted pig; the juicy mangoes in the swimming pool; the sparkling, clear ocean water of Varadero Beach at Abuela’s house; my First Communion; the walk home for lunch with my sisters; the costumes and makeup for the “carnavales”; the birthday party piñatas; and the joyful, family gatherings at my grandparents’ house.

When I was fourteen, we moved to Wisconsin. For my parents, getting used to the snow was as hard as adapting to the American culture. My sisters and I were not allowed to speak Spanish at home. While my father recorded himself speaking to eliminate his accent, my mother would make us laugh saying words like “poodles” for puddles. We celebrated my Quinceañera, but I also had a sweet 16 party. When Cuba was in the news, I researched and reported in my social studies classes, and I memorized Patrick Henry’s speech “Give me Liberty or Give me Death” for the Junior Miss Pageant. I enjoyed some notoriety when the school paper wrote an article about me as the only Cuban-American at my high school when I became an American citizen.

In 1972, I graduated from the University of Florida with a BA-ED, Spanish major. I married a wonderful American man and began my family. I now have three grown-up children and a grandchild you can see in the video. I had no Spanish accent, and very few people even knew I was Cuban. I was totally Americanized. It was only when I became a Spanish teacher at Brunswick High School in 1985 that I discovered an excitement and energy in finding and sharing my hispanidad. I took students on field trips to St. Augustine, Tampa, and Miami. I found some of the magic of Cuba in every country I studied and taught. One year, while teaching a poetry unit, I wrote a bilingual poem, La Bandera, about a lost country searching for the meaning of its flag. I applied for a National Humanities Grant and became a finalist. The same year I won the Georgia International Teacher Fellowship Grant. I studied in Spain and then in Costa Rica with Georgia Southern University. I took students to Spain and Costa Rica. As I traveled by myself and with students, I marveled at the magic of being in the countries that I studied, dreamed about, and taught.

Each child brings with them a unique set of experiences, or backpack, that affect how they behave around the water.  As I describe each type I will recommend my findings for efficiently dealing with these children in the water adjustment and complete submersion stage. The children can be divided into 3 types by experience backpack and regardless of age. 

The first and most delightful are the children who bring a positive backpack.  With these children we just need to use the backpack to our advantaged and to the advantage of the other children.  Sometimes other parents in the class see these children and feel bad that their child is not also progressing as fast and will get discouraged or drop out the first day or two, thinking that their child is not ready.  It is important to tell the other parents that every child in different.  Use the child to show the strategies and techniques or move the child to a more advanced class.  If the children in the class are 3 or more, the other children will catch up and gain confidence within a few days.

Forty percent of my first time students come to me with little or no water experience.  Even with our new shampoos that don’t hurt the eyes, some parents are still not letting water go on their child’s faces during bath time. Watching my dvd before starting the class is invaluable to this group because the parents and children will come with expectations of what they will be doing even if it will not be exactly the same.  Also, many sign up way before the lessons start and the children can practice some of the skills, especially going under water, the most crucial of the skills.  Most parents are reluctant to try this themselves, but with the video demonstrations and games, they will try it.  If a parent tells me that they don’t have a place to practice, I will encourage them to ask a neighbor or friend who has a pool or community center to let them use it.

Of these first time students, 10 % of the parents have some fear of the water and don’t know how to swim themselves.  I have found that this is the most negative of the swim experience since the fear is passed on to the child.  Having the other parent do the lessons is the best option.  Unfortunately, a parent will not tell you this and it is up to the instructor to find this early on if the child expresses fear or discomfort in the water from the first day.

It is also important to ask the parent if there has been a negative water experience such as falling in the pool or near drowning by the child.  Such a child will need more assurance and may not progress if forced.

Most of the first time parents come to lessons saying that their children love the water, some even say, “My child is swimming”.  What they don’t tell you is that they are swimming with “swimmies” or are arm bands.  They can’t understand why their child won’t go under water and why they are afraid to go near the water without the swimmies.  Some of these parents have pools or go to a community pool with older siblings and they have instilled a healthy fear in their children to stay away from the pool without swimmies or special swimsuits and from the deep end.  Parents have to explain to their child that now they will learn how to swim and that it is okay.