3 years old is a nightmare at the swimming lessons. How to encourage her to follow the instructions?
I have a pretty shy, slow-to-warm-up 3 year old girl. I'm a SAHM but we're always out and about at various playgroups/library events etc. She's been mostly ignoring/barely speaking to other adults as long as I remember unless she sees them extremely often. She did three sets of parent included swimming lessons and overall loves going to the pool.
Last week she started non parented swimming lessons and it's been a disaster. It takes about 5 minutes to even make her get in the water with a (very patient) instructor. One moment she happily blows bubbles and in a minute she throws a bucket in the pool because the instructor dares to ask her which colour bucket she would like to have. I'm not sure what sets her off sometimes because she gets upset over the most trivial things. I cannot sit farther than 2 meters from the class or she'll scream and run out of the pool.
When we talk before the lesson she tells me she understands she should follow the directions, that she will behave well and won't scream or run away but once we're there it's like something clicks in her brain. She's comfortable holding hands with the instructor while playing some games so I don't think she dislikes her. There's only one other kid in the class so she gets plenty of attention.
I really don't want to teach her that once she misbehaves she can stop the activity. She's generally not prone to tantrums, talks and expresses herself really well, so I'm genuinely not used to this behaviour. What would be the best course of action for us? Thank you