Swimming skills classes

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It is getting closer to summer, so I am once again thinking about enrolling my son in swimming classes. We have tried it last year but without success. So I am a bit wondering whether or not ASD'ers can excel at swimming? Their physical stamina? And so on?

See, my son is very passionate about water, so passionate in fact that he appears to have an "emotional" connection with it. For years, I can be cleaning dishes in my sink after dinner. My son will simply stare at the water circling down the drain, not only stare but also talk to it, e.g. "I wonder where you're going down there?" He carries pictures of waterfalls, ocean waves, etc.. in a folder wherever he goes. Also appears to be infatuated with the word "water." He sees it in a book and starts to stare, often we need to remind him to keep reading. He has been this way since before his teenage years. But yet he is still afraid of water, a bit.

He will go to our local lake with us and play around. He will do anything and everything with a lifejacket on, but panics when he is without a lifejacket on in water that is past his waist. He tries to overcome it, we see, but just can't. And he gets disappointed every time.

My son is moderately athletic, so that's not a problem. He has very minor issues with balance, but nothing else that we have noticed. What he does have trouble with is eye-hand coordination. He can't hammer a nail into wood straight. He holds a hammer with two hands directly in front of him and almost always bends nails. He also can't hit or catch a ball. My husband tried to get him into baseball a couple of years ago, but he couldn't help but swing at every ball coming to him. I never thought this would be an issue with swimming, but I wonder.

The swimming coach said that he has lots of trouble coordinating his arms with his legs. His strokes were almost always off. He favors a position of "doggy paddle." That's OK, I guess, but his moderate fear of water is still there. He gets easily tired if swimming far using this position. But my son says these classes taught too fast. He was expected to do this or that in one or two days, and they'd move on to something else. He is afraid of diving, and anything that will take him underwater without any lifejacket.

So I'm wondering if he simply needs more time, like one-on-one instruction. The local Y has swimming classes, but I am not certain as to how they teach. Or is his coordination an issue that will always get in the way? I don't know. But I do want him to be more happier with this. So any advice would be helpful on this matter.

.Tammy Selovitz

We tried classes at the Y, but there was a lot more anxiety with transitions and being social with the kids, teacher, etc. He did okay, but does not want to go underwater which is the next step.

We are trying private lessons at home in our pool...maybe being in a place with less distractions and more familiarity will help?

I think he'll get it eventually....some of the fear stuff might have to subside with age before he can be calm enough to coordinate himself.

we have the opposite problem with our 5 yr old; he is fearless around water even tho he cant swim, and he will jump in by himself even without his lifejacket on

our local Y offers private swim lessons, maybe your local Y does too? it sounds like the regular classes may just be too fast paced for your son. even if you dont put him in classes, just regular exposure to the water would help if you take him to open swim sessions or to aquatic sports classes. see if they offer beginning classes where they emphasize the very basics like holding your breath and floating on your back, and/or see if he can use his lifejacket during class. perhaps they offer a special needs swimming class?

i am not asd, but i clearly remember being put in swim lessons as a child, and feeling overwhelmed and terrified at what i was pushed to do in those classes. i did not learn to swim there, instead i learned a greater fear of the water. i eventually taught myself to swim in my teens, but i am still a very poor swimmer and fear being in depths over my head. whatever you do with your son, just make sure he feels safe and secure and the instructors respect his boundaries. pushing him beyond what he feels comfortable with may result in the opposite of what you are trying to do.

Hi, my son was/is so uncoordinated when it comes to swimming most of the time, however each year he is getting a little better.

I started my sons lessons at our local Y they were group lessons, and he wasn't doing so great. The other kids were mean to him, the other kids were getting impatient because he was holding up their class etc etc. So we took a break from lessons for a while. Then one day the pool rang me to offer private lessons with the same swim teacher. His swim teacher has been a God send. He has been having lessons/debrief sessions/playtime/therapy sessions with her now for nearly 5 years. My son's lessons may consist of only what appears to be 5 minutes of actual formal lesson time, his swim teacher spends a lot of time chatting with my son or being chatted at. He tells her about his week and then they usually play some sort of game. He doesn't realize it but the games his teacher has constructed are actually working on his coordination/stamina/confidence and stroke. He has developed such a great relationship with his teacher, when she left our local Y we went with her to the Y in the next suburb. Now my son and his best friend (both aspies) are the only swim students she has.

One of my sons favorite games and a great one for strength building is swimming and trying to duck dive with a life jacket on. It has also helped him perfect his stroke, he doesn't get so tired. Another thing he loves to do is to swim with flippers, This helps him to go fast and feel like he is achieving something, with the flippers on he works on his legs.

Swim lessons can be fantastic you just need to find the right private instructor.

We've done private and semi-private lessons with my son, all flexibly timed to his ability level, and he likes them and has learned to swim reasonably well.

One interesting thing is that he continually regresses into a very retracted position. The s t r e t c h it takes to do a stroke correctly feels wrong to him, and probably always will. He's registered it intellectually that it makes it all easier, but it just doesn't feel right, so every year the instructor has to patiently work him back into the stretch.

I don't think he would have done well in standard group lessons, so it's just as well that we started on a different tact. Overall, he's had a really positive experience and enjoys swimming, but he'll never be able to swim distances; he just isn't comfortable with the body movement it takes to cover that much space. Still, he floats super well and is quite safe; those are the important things. Back stroke is his favorite for some reason.

Overall, I'd say it took him a bit longer than average. We gave up on the first swim school because they don't let the kids move on until the form perfect, he's never going to meet that goal.

Our local high school offers swimming lessons that are taught by the high school swim team. The advantage of this is that the lessons are very low-cost and there is a very high teacher-student ratio. They don't seem to be interested in pushing my son, so he stayed in the level where he was most comfortable for two years (which was ideal.)

I think swimming is a very good form of exercise for kids with AS; it's not as social as other sports, and it's very focused, you just go back and forth doing the same thing over and over. I would add that it's important that you make sure the locker room is a safe place for your child, especially if you are a different gender and can't go in to help.

Have you thought about teaching him yourself, at all? It might help for him to be in a familiar place with familiar people to be able to concentrate on technique and overcome his fear of the water. You don't have to be the greatest teacher in the world, just good enough to get him comfortable and then maybe turn over the rest of the instruction to a professional, once you (and your son) feel he's ready for that.

The thing is, I can't swim. My husband swims like my son, e.g. doggie paddle strokes. So it's hard for either one of us to teach. We also do not have a pool. We go to the local lake and sometimes the nearby river. I have a brother who lives about thirty miles from us who is an excellent swimmer, but his work schedule is bound to interfere. Other than that, we simply don't know anyone else.

The strange thing is, my son learns in awkward ways. I imagine swimming will be no different, in hopes he can master it. He is an excellent typist. Give him a keyboard, and he simply uses two to three fingers to type. Way different than how anyone's taught. It amazes teachers that he can whip out eighty to ninety words a minute like that with little mistakes. So I imagine swimming is likely to be something unique, too.

.Tammy Selovitz

This is very, very true. I've found that the key with my son is figuring out his unique way of learning something. We still haven't found it for basic mathematical computation, but my bag of tricks isn't empty yet.

Hey, just a thought why don't you and your husband take swim classes with him. He will have the safety of his parents there and he may find it amusing that you guys are in the same class as him.

please think twice about this, we had our son in survival swim classes at a young age before he was diagnosed, and watching the videos now turns my stomach, I wish I would have taught him myself, although he loves water now at 4yo, I think he still has trust issues from that experience