[blparent] teaching our children to swim and ride bikes

[Veronica Smith]

I've been reading about all the safety devices to help our children float,
but what happened to teaching them to float without these things.
At what age do we take off these floats and actually teach them to put their
heads in the water, to hold their breath, to swim.
I, too am guilty of these things and I think this is one of the reasons Gab
was afraid of the water in the first place.
I watched my friends, sighted friends with sighted children and very few of
them used the floats with their children.  They just got into the water or
put them in swim lessons and the kids learned to swim without floaties.
Some of these kiddos were very young, toddlers.
The same goes for riding a bicycle, I put training wheells on the big girl
bike and Gab was so comfortable with it that she never wated to take them
off.  To this day, she cannot ride a big girl bike.
As blind parents, are we over protecting our children?
Just a thought! V