Aidan is spending lots of time in the water.\u00a0 A few weeks ago, we were swimming at Beaver Lake in Ware, Massachusetts and were out on a dock.\u00a0 I have expected for sometime that he would be close to jumping in the water by himself.\u00a0 Up to this point, I hold both his hands and swing him into the water.\u00a0 We do this at the Conway Pool (really a pond) where I can stand and he is up higher on a dock.\u00a0 At Beaver Lake, he was afraid to jump right in from the (level to the water) dock.<\/p>\n
I thought of tossing him in because I thought there was a good chance he would really like it and that it would help him to jump in by himself.\u00a0 However, when I suggested it, he got upset and made it clear that he did NOT want me to do that.\u00a0 But gently lowering him into the water and holding onto him until he was fully “in” was not moving him forward in his water play.\u00a0 After considering throwing him anyway for a while, I thought, “Is there something in between?”\u00a0 So I suggested lifting him and dropping him into the water from low to higher distance.\u00a0 After and initial resistance, I dropped him in and he loved it and asked for more.\u00a0 “I want to do that again, Dad.”\u00a0 That’s one of his favorite expressions associated with learning and play along with, “Watch me!”<\/p>\n
Well, I dropped him from different heights trying to push the height as much as I could.\u00a0 We had very fun time.\u00a0 He was still not ready to jump in though.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, before we went to his grandfather’s pool, I suggested that he might be ready to jump in all by himself today. Sure enough, he was ready this week.\u00a0 He was very proud of himself and even jumped in the deep end.\u00a0 I will have to get some video of this.\u00a0 The whole thing reminded me of Vigotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, which suggests that kids always have an zone of where they can go next in their learning and that it is best to push it but not too much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aidan is spending lots of time in the water.\u00a0 A few weeks ago, we were swimming at Beaver Lake in Ware, Massachusetts and were out on a dock.\u00a0 I have expected for sometime that he would be close to jumping … Continue reading