Only Fools Rush In

So some dear friends of ours invited us to their super awesome community swimming pool (which is much nicer than ours) for the fourth and we happily accepted. I was excited to take my oldest daughter because it had been quite a while since she had been in a swimming pool. She had enjoyed the ocean after a little convincing, but wasn't a fan of the lake we visited. Essentially I was still on the fence as to whether or not she is afraid of the water. I am no longer on the fence.

She was terrified. It was ridiculous. Their pool complex has a great kiddie pool with turtles and frogs and whatnot, and the entrance to the pool is a sloping tile path made up to look like the beach, so you don't even have to go down steps to get into the water. No sooner did the water start to lap at my daughter's feet did she let out an ear-piercing scream. I was a little surprised by that, since she had been in deeper water in the bathtub and seemed to enjoy bath time immensely.

And she couldn't have been safer. I got her the water wings for her arms and the little pink inner tube to go around her. Now you may say that's a bit of overkill, but it turned out to be just right, since I found out through experimentation that she couldn't use the wings properly to support her weight and keep her face out of the water, and taking off the wings and just using the ring would have resulted in her slipping right through it. I didn't test that particular theory, but I felt confident in it.

As a result of her overwhelming trepidation she spent the entire time clinging desperately to me, all the while loudly proclaiming that she wanted her mommy and she needed to get out. Now you may think I'm a bad dad for forcing my 2 1/2 yr old to face her fears, but you don't know about the times she was distracted from that fact that she was surrounded by tens of thousands of gallons of water.

For instance when the pool operators came around with free little rubber duckies (cuz that pool is awesome) that you could fill with water and they would shoot it out their mouths. She took great delight in spraying me with water or getting sprayed herself, all while perched on my knee. And when I would move quickly through the water, or spin around while holding her, her face would light up and she would even occasionally smile.

Some of my fondest memories are of playing in the swimming pool as a child, and I want nothing more than for her to have that same joy at swimming, but I know if I push her too much she'll just end up hating it. Does anybody know how to convince you child that swimming is fun without scarring them for life? Any help would be appreciated.