“Frankly, I’ve had it with swimming lessons,” an acquaintance of mine recently confessed. As a swim instructor, my interest was piqued by the frustration inherent in her proclamation. I requested that she elaborate, which she was happy to do.

“Last summer, I enrolled my children in swimming lessons, paid a hefty sum of money, and got myself into a carpool that wreaked havoc with my family’s schedule at the most inconvenient time of day. I’m not really sure my children made much progress; even if they had, it wouldn’t have justified the financial outlay, the elevated stress level, and the drain on my energy. The summer leaves me feeling frazzled enough without extra pressure! Maybe I’m a terrible mother, but I’m just not doing swimming lessons again this year,” she concluded with a sigh.

“My little daughter loves the pool! She begs to go swimming all the time. The only problem is that I can’t take my eyes off her for a second. If I do, she jumps right into water way over her head and comes up sputtering and laughing and completely ready to do it again. Can you teach her to swim this summer?”

  “My son is terrified of the big pool! He’ll go into a blow-up pool, but if I take him to a real pool, he refuses to go near the water, and if I try to take him