So after many a Vacation Bible School, I signed him up for some group lessons where my friend's son (and Sam's friend) had made huge progress in overcoming his fear of the water. Plus his friend was going to be there again for another session, too. My goal was simple -- time to ditch the water wings once and for all! The kids were divided into three groups -- babies and novices, kids learning strokes, and kids learning to dive. Sam swims pretty well, so I figured he'd either be in the middle group or the diving group and filled in the instructor. No big deal.
Well, at the end of the lesson, the instructor called the parents over to watch their kids show off their new tricks. I know something was amiss when Sam was in the shallow end with the two-year-old girls, and he hates (ahem, dislikes) girls right now. What the heck? Yet another waste of time and money, I thought to myself.
When it was Sam's turn to show off, the instructor said, "Sam, show your mommy how you can put your face in the water!" What the %#@$?! Sam reluctantly put his face in the water, moaning the whole time. I bet my face was purple with frustration. Thank God that won't be on YouTube.
"What happened? He can swim!" I told the instructor. She shrugged and said with some noticeable frustration of her own, "He wouldn't do anything!" Grrrrr.... Needless to say we had a lil chat on the half-hour ride home, but I couldn't get a straight answer out of him. (He is a guy after all.)
The next day I talked to the instructor again and got him back in the intermediate group. At show-off time, however, there was Sam, back again with the toddler girls in the shallow end, one of whom was screaming at the top of her lungs. In his defense at least he was doing the crawl. The instructor explained, "He said he's afraid to jump into the deep end, and we didn't want to push him until we talked to you." My reply consisted of giving a jumbo-tron-sized green light for pushing him to go in the deep end with physical force authorized if necessary.
On the way home, I was determined to figure out what was really going on. "Sam, you've jumped off the driving board tons of times! You've jumped into the deep end a million times. What's the deal?" As frustrated as I was, he seemed genuinely scared and kept talking about his friend in the middle group who was still afraid to jump into the deep end. Ohhhhhhh, there's the connection.
Whoops -- change of tactic necessary. I explained to Sam that he needed to be in the deep end so he could be there to encourage his friend to jump in.
"Why do you think your friend is scared?" I asked.
"I think he's afraid of getting hurt," Sam responded.
"But it doesn't hurt. It's fun, right?"
"Yeah, so I'm going to be in the deep end and push him in!"
"Let's let the teachers decide what to do. You just need to encourage him and tell him it won't hurt."
Presto! That day Sam was back in action, jumping in full force after yelling at loud decibels, "INCOMING!" And thankfully the next day his friend got over his fears and jumped in without a moment's hesitation.
Later that afternoon we went to our nearby lake, where Sam loves to jump off the dock. Up to this point, though, I have made him wear water wings because the murky water makes me nervous. As I started to whip them on out, Sam balked, "No, Mommy, I can swim!"
I looked at him suspiciously with that Don't-Try-to-Pull-Anything-Over-On-Me-I'm-Your-Mother Look. Let's refresh the record here. Just one day ago, our roles had been reversed. He claimed he couldn't jump into deep water and I was telling him he could. Now he's the one saying he can do it, and I'm the one saying he can't.
"Trust me on this one," Sam implored me, boomeranging my own expression back at me.
As much as the dark water scares me, I didn't want to hold him back, so I nodded and yelled at loud decibels, "INCOMING!"
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