Recently I’ve discovered that the swimming pool is one place where one can learn about the tyranny of some parents. I’ve been accompanying my son to the swimming pool since his summer holidays began a couple of weeks back. While he swims in the pool I sit on the pool side and watch people which is one thing I like doing. I’ve observed that in their eagerness to get their kids to learn swimming (or learn a new skill,) parents reveal newer aspects of their personality. I watched quite a lot of parents these two weeks but what happened in the past two days made me sad.
Kids love to play in the water and should be allowed to frolick in the pool. However parents think that the kids should begin to learn to swim from day one. The parents subject their kids to unimaginable agonies. I’ve watched kids being hurled into the pool in order to force them to learn to swim. In the process I’ve seen kids too traumatized to return to the pool. Instead of the enjoyable thing that swimming was supposed to be, the parents are making it into something they are terrorized with.
At the pool the parents stand on the edge of the pool and bark at the kids to do this and that- ‘move your hands!’, ‘move your legs!’, ‘go into the deep parts’. Suitable gestures like flailing the hands and legs accompany these instructions. The more the kid shows reluctance or fear the sterner the parents’ expressions become. Some parents wag their fingers at the kids menacingly. Some stopped short of hitting the crying and cowering kids.
But the day before yesterday I saw a young mother slap her 9-10 year old daughter who was afraid to venture into the pool. It was something that made me very sad. Beating your kid in front of others is something a parent should never do. It is the worst sort of humiliation one can mete out to your kid. It filled me with horror, shame and embarrassment, watching the poor kid plead with her mother not to force her to enter the pool.
There’s a burly, sadistic coach in the pool who is gruff and rude with the kids. His style of teaching kids to swim is to hurl them into the water without any sort of protection and force them to swim. It is very traumatic to the kids and I’ve watched the kids stand in line, crying and pleading with their parents not to subject them to this kind of enforced learning. Instead of enjoying the process of learning to swim I am sure the kids will detest water all their lives. Some kids run away to the other end of the pool scared of the water.
Yesterday morning as soon as we entered the pool premises the coach was hurling the terrified kids into the pool as the parents watched. One of the kids ran away and once again I witnessed another mother hit her son. My son watched silently while I tried to tell the mother not to force the kid. Instead she glared at me. I went my way feeling sorry for the poor kid. I don’t understand when some parents will understand that you cannot force kids to learn anything in this manner.
Kids love to play in the water and should be allowed to frolick in the pool. However parents think that the kids should begin to learn to swim from day one. The parents subject their kids to unimaginable agonies. I’ve watched kids being hurled into the pool in order to force them to learn to swim. In the process I’ve seen kids too traumatized to return to the pool. Instead of the enjoyable thing that swimming was supposed to be, the parents are making it into something they are terrorized with.
At the pool the parents stand on the edge of the pool and bark at the kids to do this and that- ‘move your hands!’, ‘move your legs!’, ‘go into the deep parts’. Suitable gestures like flailing the hands and legs accompany these instructions. The more the kid shows reluctance or fear the sterner the parents’ expressions become. Some parents wag their fingers at the kids menacingly. Some stopped short of hitting the crying and cowering kids.
But the day before yesterday I saw a young mother slap her 9-10 year old daughter who was afraid to venture into the pool. It was something that made me very sad. Beating your kid in front of others is something a parent should never do. It is the worst sort of humiliation one can mete out to your kid. It filled me with horror, shame and embarrassment, watching the poor kid plead with her mother not to force her to enter the pool.
There’s a burly, sadistic coach in the pool who is gruff and rude with the kids. His style of teaching kids to swim is to hurl them into the water without any sort of protection and force them to swim. It is very traumatic to the kids and I’ve watched the kids stand in line, crying and pleading with their parents not to subject them to this kind of enforced learning. Instead of enjoying the process of learning to swim I am sure the kids will detest water all their lives. Some kids run away to the other end of the pool scared of the water.
Yesterday morning as soon as we entered the pool premises the coach was hurling the terrified kids into the pool as the parents watched. One of the kids ran away and once again I witnessed another mother hit her son. My son watched silently while I tried to tell the mother not to force the kid. Instead she glared at me. I went my way feeling sorry for the poor kid. I don’t understand when some parents will understand that you cannot force kids to learn anything in this manner.
However, I am very happy that my son learnt to swim on his own without anyone’s help. Last year when we started going to the pool, for a week he swam with the help of the tube. The coach was there last year too but taught only the kids whose parents asked him to teach. I didn’t ask him and I am glad about it because a week after swimming with the tube, my kid told me he would try to swim without it. He started hesitantly and within a few days began to swim without the tube. He is proud of having to learnt to swim without anyone’s help. Maybe that is why he enjoys the daily visit to the pool in the summer holidays.
4 comments:
Becoming a (biological) parent needs no qualifications :-)
What can I say? I am appalled.
>>Instead of the enjoyable thing that swimming was supposed to be, the parents are making it into something they are terrorized with.
Entirely agree with you on this one. I recently tried teaching my daughter to cycle and found myself yelling rather unreasonable at her for not pedalling right. 5 minutes later, it dawned on me that I was making the whole exercise painful and not something she will look forward to and the change of approach worked much better.Sometimes parental expectations come in the way of adult common sense.
A very nice article. Vinod you have just snatched away my words and feelings. I can cite a personal example of how my son was bullied by the coach to go to the deep side and some child played a prank and pulled his leg. He was drowning and the coach was no where. I never asked him to go for swimming lessons since that day and he has learnt swimming at his own sweet will and time. I am ofcourse not one of those lucky moms who can supervise all these becoz of my work pressures but try to keep in touch with everything that happens.
Thanks, Nita.
I'm glad my post echoed your own experience and also feelings
Vinod
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