Nearly 3yo has had swimming lessons for the past year, almost. At first he hated it, but warmed up to it pretty quickly, and now is an avid diver before his third birthday. All of his lessons to date have been the Parent Tot sessions. He loves being in the water with me and he loves singing the songs, but he has known about safety slides and the Welcome and Good-Bye songs for long enough. Today was his first lesson in Pre-K Level 2, sans parent. It is questionable at this stage, whether he will listen to an instructor, but I suppose that is standard for his age. He was also the only kid in the class today, so maybe at the next lesson, if there are more kids, he will be inclined to follow.
The first 5 minutes, he spent screaming like a banshee. Everyone at the pool knows him for his fearless jumps, splashes and dives in 12 inches (not off the edge, obviously), so we were all quite bemused when he was inconsolable while whirling around today.
The 2nd 5minutes were in shallow water and he enjoyed that, but then was more screaming and not listening when his teacher tried to introduce new things. Did Phelps and Thorpe start like this?

The 2nd lesson in the sans parent session was better in that he had peers in the class with him whom he knew, but there was a different teacher, and she was not so well-prepared to deal w widdle monkeys who can stand up in the water but don’t want to stand still while she has her back turned. So naïve.
If nothing else, I can see that nearly 3yo will be fine in a swim class without me, and I would probably be fine having all three of mine taking their lesson at the same time. Boo to not swimming with a toddler anymore!