Abhay and his selective hydrophobia!

Come summer and it’s the universal time to hit the pool! It’s probably something most kids look forward to this season…but certainly not Abhay! I don’t know what to do with the selective hydrophobia that has come to haunt my son yet again! ‘Selective” because my son loves frolicking in  water otherwise….but it is the big bad swimming pool he is scared of and he is petrified of jumping into its pellucid blue waters…especially when his feet cannot reach the pool floor! It took over three  levels of swimming lessons back to back plus continuous practice over a period of one year, and finally lapping up as many picture books as I could find on the same subject to help Abhay overcome his fear of swimming in a pool. But I’m not sure if he has been spoiled by the indoor temperature controlled pools of the US, or by the sweet talking American coaches of his previous lessons, because when we took him for a swimming class yesterday, after a gap of over eight months, he acted as if he was entering a swimming pool for the very first time ever! “Oh…No ..not again” is all we had to say!

So I fell back on my old method of reading to him about other’s experiences in the swimming pool. What’s better than reading about one of his favorite characters –“Peppa Pig goes swimming”! It’s a sunny day and Peppa Pig and her family are at the swimming pool. Armed with their arm bands, Peppa and George are all set to get into the pool. But George is not as excited as Peppa since it is his first time at the swimming pool. Mummy pig convinces George into jumping into the water when George realizes that he loves it! Just then Rebecca Rabbit arrives along with her little brother Richard, who appears as nervous as George was. Mother pig then encourages both the first-timers to hold on to their float boards and practice kicking their legs. Peppa and Rebecca show off their swimming skills courtesy their arm bands when Daddy Pig asks them not to splash too much to which the much offended Peppa clarifies that big kids don’t splash as big kids are good at swimming. But everything is forgotten as they race each other down the pool and have fun swimming and splashing in the water and their little brothers kick their legs earnestly with the intention of learning to swim as well as their big sisters! When Richard drops his toy into the water, Daddy pig comes to his rescue by diving down to retrieve it as everyone has a wonderful time at the pool. I wonder when Abhay will enjoy the pool as much as George did!