Child Afraid of the Water: What to Do Before the First Swim Lesson

Start in the bathroom, two weeks before the lesson

Nearly all of this fear is about water on the face rather than about depth, which is why the bathroom fixes more of it than the pool does. Work on it for five minutes at the end of a bath, when your child is already warm.

For three days, pour a cup of water slowly over the back of the head while your child looks down at their own hands. For the next three, pour it over the forehead so a little runs past the eyes, and put a dry towel straight into their hands.

From about day seven, fill a bowl, hold it on their lap and ask them to blow hard enough to move the surface. Count to three out loud, then let them sit back. Chin in, then lips, then nose, one of those per day.

Stop a step the moment your child holds their breath instead of blowing out, or shuts their eyes and goes rigid. Go back to yesterday's step for two more days, because a step forced on Tuesday is lost again by Thursday.

Where does the fear usually come from?

Ask what happened, because there is nearly always a specific event. A slip at a hotel pool, water up the nose in the shower, a sibling who pushed their head under. Children hold on to one incident and will usually tell you which one it was.

Two things look like fear of water and are not. A child who cannot see the bottom of a cloudy pool is frightened of what is down there, and a child who was cold last time is dreading the cold.

Visit the pool the week before, and do not swim

Take your child to the pool they will actually swim in and get into nothing. Sit on the edge with their feet in the water for ten minutes, watch the class that is running, then leave while it is still going well.

If you are still choosing where to go, our guide on when to start swim lessons covers age and lesson length, and the guide to swimming lessons in Indonesia covers how lessons are usually priced and run. The activity finder and the swim and sports classes in Jakarta listing both show the age range each class takes.

What should you tell the instructor?

Arrive five minutes early and say three things to whoever is teaching. Your child is frightened of water on the face, you have been practising in the bath, and this is what started it. A good teacher will rearrange the first ten minutes around that.

Then ask what they do if a child refuses to get in. The answer you want is that they sit on the step and work on something else, not that they lift the child in.

Ask who else is in the group and how old they are. A frightened five-year-old put in with four confident swimmers spends the lesson watching, so a smaller group, or one-to-one for the first month, is usually worth the difference in price.

Should you stay where your child can see you?

Stay in sight for the first two or three lessons, in one place they can find without searching. Tell them where you will be before they get in, then stay there.

Do not coach from the side, because two voices leave a nervous child choosing between them and the one standing in the water is the teacher. By about the fourth lesson, move further back and tell them you have moved.

Armbands, floats and goggles

Goggles help a frightened child more than any float will, because the problem is the face. Buy a pair that fits the week before and let your child wear them in the bath, so the strap is not a new objection on lesson day.

A jacket-style float that holds the chest and back keeps a child upright. Armbands push the arms up and let the head tip forwards, which is the position a frightened child panics in, so they are the wrong choice for a first lesson.

Whatever you use, a float is not a safety device. A child wearing one still needs an adult within arm's reach, and floats come off in stages once a child can hold the wall and kick. Our nine tips for teaching a child to swim safely cover the supervision rules for the pool time you do yourself.

When should you pause the lessons?

Pause after three lessons that each end in real distress with no change between them. Distress that fades within five minutes of getting in is progress, and distress that starts in the car park and lasts the whole lesson is not.

A pause is four to six weeks of the bathroom steps and ordinary pool play with you, then a restart with the same teacher if that can be arranged. Tell your child the plan, including the part about going back, so the pause does not read as a reward for crying.