Swim Lessons

Pieces of conversation I heard the lifeguard (my ex-student) Sean say to Henry as Henry tried to convince him not to take him into the pool.

1. "Ha, you're right Henry, you don't have any blubber, but you still have to go in."
2. "No the water isn't attacking you Henry."
3. "No, I don't know how water striders stay on the surface of the water."

Needless to say, Henry doesn't like his swim lessons. He had a pretty rough day yesterday. Jenny and I took the kids canoeing on Long Pond in Barre. Henry did NOT want to go in the Canoe. He pleaded, and actually cried, and I learned something about helping Henry get over his fears. Don't be convincing, just be calm. I had in mind that archetypal coach figure that calmly faces difficulties and is unshaken, unexcitable. I certainly never had a coach like that. I must have seen an account of one on tv or something. Unemotional, reliable, calm. Its not that he needs me to explain why things aren't scary, he just needs me to be unafraid, and unexcitable. He finally allowed me to get him in the canoe and to progressively go further down the river with him. He said he found it to be calm and nice. Thank god it was different experience than the bikes.

Then, to top off his two terrifying experiences, Henry got that throwup thing that's going around last night. He slept it off and was fine the today... although, he did say he was too tired to go to swim lessons  :)

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