Log start: 7:08pm June 30th 2009
Children. Some are cute, yet some are so bad you want to punch them in the face. But you can't since that's "wrong."
But the focus here is why they're so cute and why they're so bad. As a swimming instructor, i believe that we see the best and the worse of kids. Kids who normally wouldn't do something would suddenly EXPLODE when they get in the water and kids who are normally loud as those asian construction workers at 7 in the morning who would suddenly lose their pride and cry the loudest in the room.
but what does that have to do with anything?
Well listen up. i am an instructor, and i work for the camp during the summer. weekend lessons are okay but summer camp is the craziest thing ever. the cute little 4 to 7 year olds that i have in the shallow end are the first people who will be analyzed.
We'll name this category as Children.
These children have the ability to be the cutest little people ever and at the same time, they have the ability to be the most annoying little brats ever.
during the course of the day i teach a few of these classes of these children and some are so cute you can pinch them in the face and they'll start laughing and then go about their odd worldly lives. and these are also the children that won't listen to a fucking thing you say.
4 to 7 year olds have not yet enter the society yet because some of them have not been in kindergarten or 1st grade yet.
And before they enterered kindergarten or the first grade, their greatest influence are their parents, who love them.
And you see, this is the problem. My theory is that the children who get an equal share of love and ass-whooping from parents turn out to be cute and cuddly. like my little asian peoples in my classes. some of them are the cutest ever. and then there are parents who love their kid too much, SO much that the child will only listen to them and not to anyone else, mainly their LIFEGUARD.
one of my classes later in the day has a class where i think the kids will ONLY listen to their parents and not other people. kids who are so riddiculous i would snap at and probably break something... (over their heads)
but you know... i can't -_-
these kids you tell them something and they'll do whatever the fuck they feel like.
i'm here thinking to myself, am i doing something wrong? maybe it's the way i teach?
but i soon realize that it is not the problem.
for my children-classed classes on the weekends, they listen to everything i say and they do exactly as they are told. but for camp they go around jumping and jumping and they let go of the wall to go under the water and then they get scared and crys.
to my own defence, all the lifeguards are told to tell the children to ALWAYS stay on the wall unless the lifeguards tell you to do otherwise.
and then my boss blames us that they're running around like fucking ADHD infested lunatics screaming and splashing. Yeah, like ONE PERSON could handle about 10 screaming children. Please get real.
These children then advance to a later staged named Kids.
i notice that children and kids are the same thing but in urban terms, children are younger than kids. and kids are just a little more mature. and when i say just a little, i mean the difference of a droplet of water in a gallon of water. Ok, i'll just some kids a teaspoons' difference.
So, kids.
From the children stage, the quiet and obedient ones usually become better swimmers than the kids who just run around having fun.
It's like those who study, get a high grade, those who just sit around and play, fail. but there are some exceptions, as always.
In swimming we rate a kid based on their ability to swim on a scale of 1 through 6, 6 being the highest.
Usually, kids aren't levels 5 or 6 yet so i'd say that the good kids end up becomming a level 2 or 3 while the A.D.D. kids stay at a level one with a life jacket or a floaty or something.
Although, do keep in mind that some children and kids start later than everyone else. And hear me out here, after the age of 7, you start to develop more rapidly due to hormones, and that only adds to the problem.
Now, by this stage. the kids who know how to swim will advance quickly and then the kids who don't listen will ALWAYS have trouble holding on to the wall or wont do what you say correctly. but at least, at this point, the kids all listen to you.
the main problem with these kids is that it takes A LOT of shouting to get it across to some of these kids, while some of these kids can listen and execute everything you say, some you really have a hard time dealing with. Ok, so that takes cares of the kids.
The next level are the adolescents.
These kids are 12 to about 10 years old.
These kids have seen their fair share of family and the outside world so they know what's going on around them. these kids are the most obedient out of the bunch and they listen to everything you say. only problem, they get bored fast. so fast that when you're sending kids off one by one to swim, the person who just came back goes "OMG WHEN DO I GET TO GO AGAIN?? CMON!"
Yeah. here, the kids who listened when they were children, tend to be level 3-5 swimmers while the failure children group start from lvl 1-3
So this group is the best group out of the bunch, but then... what about the teens?
Teenagers. ages 12-14 (in camp)
These kids are the ones who have seen TOO much of the outside world and they start to rebel.
they try to rebel so hard that they always try to get what they want.
me - "okay guys, butterfly there and back. GO!"
some of them - "OMG! BUTTERFLY IS SO HARD!!! can i do freestyle?"
Even the kids who started off as angels here turn for the worse.
these kids listen to you, but they always have something in their mind like "lalala, i'll just listen to him or else i'll be in trouble!"
The obedient children level up to the equivalent of a person who can do things and also give a little extra.
the bad children eventually learn how to swim but then they learn to think outside the box.
the make fun of others to higher their self esteem and they do things like swim to the bottom of the pool when i clearly tell them to stay on the wall. and these are also the kids that are going to flip and turn on the diving board when i tell each and every single one of them to no flip or turn.
these kids are not the worse because you can figure out their next move because you were once them. but the straining yourself to figure them out part is the only turn-off about it.
from a scale of best to worse, the scale would definately be something like.
Good adolescent -> Good teen -> Good child -> good kid -> bad teen -> bad adolescent -> bad kid -> bad child.
Different stages of a child's life.
first hand experience comes at a hefty price.
experience that i've built up over the years in the profession, just tips to make the world spin a little bit smoother.
HakoneDayDreamer, a paycheck for two days came in :D time to treat myself to a large frozen yogurt and red mango instead of a medium! XD
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