My goal was to get Kayla swimming all on her own this summer. Not an easy task with a child who does not always embrace change or independence. With many things she needs some strong pushing encouragement. She had no interest in peddling her bike until I walked away and refused to push her anymore; or to pump herself on the swing until I taught her how walked away and made her "sink or swim"; or to independently go to the bathroom or dress herself until I refused to help her on the potty and dress her the month before she started preschool at the age of 3. Swimming on her own was no different. She was comfortable with the status quo of using her floaty vest. Lucky for me I have a swim vest where you can remove the flotations one by one. Yesterday I took her down to the last 2 floaties and then got her to take the vest off (at which time I took the last 2 floaties out of the vest). She took it upon herself to let go and swim in place however briefly. I jumped on that and gave her the added push encouragement she needed. She ended up getting annoyed with me yesterday as she usually does with my pushing encouragement and refused to even admit she swam on her own. But today, she put her vest on knowing full well there were no floaties in it and that gave her the confidence she needed to swim and practice more swimming and she improved greatly just in one afternoon. I am so very proud of her.