Swimming with Mums or Dads

Following on from my post about Dads and family photographs, I’ve been thinking about swimming as well.  In our swimming lessons, there’s quite often more Dads than Mums in the water, mainly because it’s a Saturday, and it seems to be more a dad thing to do with children, if they’re not at work.

But not us.  N’s been swimming for a couple of months short of 4 years, and his dad has not once been to watch him swim.  Or taken him swimming outside of lessons.  The OH isn’t keen on swimming, the getting wet, and even on holiday it would be me found swimming in the pool rather than him.

I do think it’s so important that before N graduates from Water Babies this week, that he does have his dad come to see him that once.

Over the years we’ve been swimming it’s been quite noticeable that the majority of children who swim with their dads are a lot more confident in the water, get ‘chucked around’ a lot more in the breaks, and have progressed faster.  Now obviously practising outside of lessons helps, and many of those people will do that as well, but it does make me wander what N would have been like in the pool had he swim with his dad rather than me.

I’d assume that they’d continue their ‘play’ and teasing repartee that they have outside the pool, and N might have had slacker discipline because I’m sure his dad would have been more blasé about him learning to swim.  But then I’m the parent who prefers to swim so maybe it has been better having me swimming with him.  I know I’d not have given up me swimming with N in lessons for anyone, although maybe being able to switch would have been handy to at least see what might have happened.  I’d hope that whether it was me or his dad with him, that he’d have tried the same as he has done, and enjoyed it the same.

So with one lesson to go, I’m on a mission to get N’s dad to the pool to see him swim.  I’ve got my in-laws on the case, and N himself.  So fingers crossed, N will be able to get in the pool knowing that his dad wants to see what he can do, and be proud of him like I am.

Who takes your children to swimming lessons?  Do you think it makes a difference?

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Disclosure: We swim with and blog for Water Babies. All words and opinions are my own.