By Conal Hanna, the Guardian, September 13, 2021
The dawning realisation of my limitations as a parent came in the aftermath of a(nother) pre-swimming meltdown. My son was approaching four at the time but still swam like a baby. That might sound harsh but I mean it literally – he was still in the “parent and bub” class splashing alongside six-month-olds. What’s more, his stubborn resistance to the class was growing by the week.
We had tried seemingly everything. Lots of cuddles, reassurance, rewards. Then one day, out of desperation as much as anything, I tried something radical: listening to him.
“Why don’t you like swimming mate?” I asked. “I just don’t like it,” he said. And so we sat there on the living room floor, where I’d been trying to cajole him into his togs, and instead talked. For once I managed to resist the urge to reach for my standard refrain (“you’re alright, mate”) and instead just empathised. We talked about what it means to feel nervous. About situations that make daddy nervous. And that it’s OK to feel nervous, but it doesn’t have to stop you from doing something, either. It was his best week at swimming for months.
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