[blparent] teaching our children to swim and ride bikes

[Erin Rumer]

I think that these tools should be used as confidence builders and then when
the child is feeling more bold, then it's time to begin taking the tool away
and teach them the particular skill.  It's not one or the other though.  I
think it's crucial to slowly take the tool away as the child progresses.  As
for the child learning how to hold their breath and float, these skills can
be taught and mastered very young but it takes lots of time in the water,
proper teaching methods and most importantly comfort on the child's part.
I've seen programs where children can be signed up as early as 4 months old
for one-on-one instruction from a swim instructor 5 days a week for 10
minutes per session.  It costs good money, around $350 but it's worth it if
you've got the extra cash to guarantee your child a phenomenal start to safe
swimming.  My husband and I watched a video on-line and it's pretty darn
astonishing how the instructors can get little infants floating on their
backs almost right away from teaching them the muscle memory as well as
holding their breath and lifting their heads as soon as they hit the water.
My own father started me in the water at 6 months and he got me in the water
as much as possible to quickly turn me into a fish.  Like someone mentioned
in a past post, the older we get the more fear we have to learn new things.

Erin	

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Veronica Smith
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 4:00 PM
To: 'Blind Parents Mailing List'
Subject: [blparent] teaching our children to swim and ride bikes

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



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