Swimming Without Screaming

Here's the deal...William has never been a huge fan of any body of water. However, it was made a lot worse last year, when his head went under at a friend's pool and he couldn't get it up fast enough. Since then, he's had a terrible fear of 'big pools' and wants NOTHING to do with them! If we take him to a 'big pool' he cries and screams something fierce! And unfortunately, his fear has been passed onto Abbey, although she's never had a traumatic experience with water. Which is completely frustrating when Jonathan and I love the water, and hello...we live in Florida and it's summer! It's HOT and the best way to cool off is in the water. And it's no sense in taking the kids to a pool to cool down, when they don't get in!

So anyway, while we were in Tally, we took the kids (with their cousins) to the hotel pool, where our extended family was staying. It was great, because it had 3 steps the entire side of the pool where the kids could sit and be mostly content. We let them get in on their own time and when they saw how all of their 'other cousins' were loving the water, they slowly ventured in. Abbey even let us put the floaties into her swim suit and wanted to get back in the water when it was time to go home.

So after that great experience we decided to take them down to our friends' pool last week. William recognized where we were going and wasn't very happy about it, but once we arrived and after he ran around and got hot enough, he eventually allowed us to take him off the top step of the pool. He let us take him around on the floaties for a bit and liked that he could reach the bottom on the shallow side. Even though he didn't need to, he could 'tip toe' around the shallow end and asked to do it a few times on his own. And Abbey, wow, she wanted to get into her little boat and was really having a blast zooming around in circles! Jonathan and I just watched in amazement and relief!!

It was lunch time by the time we arrived, since we had to wait for Jonathan to get home, so I think getting out of the water for our picnic lunch kinda slowed down our momentum that day. However, progress is progress and I'm thankful for every bit of it! It may not sound like a big deal to most people, but when you have a child, or in our case - 2 of them, who has such a fear of anything, I can't explain to you the sense of pride and accomplishment you feel when they take a step towards overcoming that fear! Especially, spectrum kids, who may never overcome certain issues! It's just wonderful! I know it will be slow going, as our visit yesterday showed us. However, I'm hopeful that this will be our summer to swim without screaming! :)