On Aug 22, 3:22*pm, "brooklyn1" > wrote:
> "Kathleen" > wrote in message
>
> ...
>
> > Sky wrote:
>
> >> Terry Pulliam Burd wrote:
>
> >>>On Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:20:59 -0500, Kathleen
> >>>fired up random neurons and synapses to opine:
>
> >>>>In my experience, kids who are terrified of water (TOW) invariably have
> >>>>at least one parent who is also TOW. *It can be overcome, but not in the
> >>>>presence of the fearful parent. *Parents who are afraid of water need to
> >>>>go get a cup of coffee during their kid's swimming lesson. *Nothing an
> >>>>instructor can say to reassure a frightened child can counteract the
> >>>>effect of an anxious parent in the stands bending the railing into an
> >>>>S-curve.
>
> >>>We moved to Miami FL when my kids were 2 and 4 and, having a pool in
> >>>the backyard, it only made sense to give them swimming lessons so they
> >>>were at least "pool safe." I had a WSI in those days, but knew enough
> >>>not to try to teach the kids myself, so went to another WSI-certified
> >>>teacher. The older of the two kids took to swimming as if born in a
> >>>pool. The younger one was *terrified* of water, which I blame on a
> >>>sailing accident the family had experienced just before we moved from
> >>>Houston. He was nearly catatonic for hours after we capsized.
>
> >>>The swim teacher tried for 2 months and the kid just let himself
> >>>*sink* rather than even *try* to swim. She was his first failure in 20
> >>>years. After that debacle, I tried teaching him myself, which resulted
> >>>in more trauma, but a kid who knew how to get himself out of a pool if
> >>>he fell in - and every time he espied me coming at him in a bathing
> >>>suit, he ran for the hills, as he knew another lesson was upcoming.
>
> >>>Of course, grown men have been known to take off running since time
> >>>out of mind when I show up in a bathing suit... [drum roll, please]
>
> >>>Terry "Squeaks" Pulliam Burd
>
> >> Sometimes, some innate fears are so overwhelming, it takes a LOT of
> >> "professional" intervention to overcome, maybe?? *And the fear of water
> >> can be so very primal. *Why is it many 'critters' can instictively swim,
> >> but humans cannot?
>
> > Because in four-legged animals the motions and body posture required for
> > swimming are the same as those for walking, only slightly exaggerated.
>
> > There's a lot more involved for us bi-pedal types.
>
> The word is *biped*. *And your number of legs theory is purely made up, by
> you.
>
> Humans can swim instinctively at birth (what do you think they do inside
> their mother)....

Oh please!! That's not swimming! That's floating! And in rather
cramped quarters at that. Fetuses get all their oxygen via the
umbilicus, and their lungs are full of amniotic fluid as they develop,
so a fetus' first breath comes immediately after birth!

John Kuthe...