Swimming in Frustration

Ok.....this will be a bit pessimistic and negative so I will apologize in advance. I am feeling so frustrated with the lack of quality, affordable swimming lessons that I could just scream! At this point, Anna has taken swimming lessons once/week since September. You would think the girl would be able to swim laps by now. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It is not for lack of trying on her part- she is a fish- loves the water, not afraid to do whatever she is told, always looks forward to swimming lessons. The problem is that all the instructors seem to focus on is playing in the water. This is not what we are paying for. Maybe if it were Sarah taking lessons, I'd expect this. In her last 8 week session which just finished up tonight, she was still "swimming" with someone holding on to her. They never truly challenged her to do more than that. She can jump in without anyone's assistance, but they would always ask her if she wanted "one hand" or "two hands" to jump in. She was too polite to say anything different. By week 6, I finally told her she just has to say "no hands". Well, that lasted one night since she seems to get a new instructor every week and so none of them have a real handle on her progress anyways. But, the kicker of this entire thing is she got her "certificate" from this session tonight with the recommendation to REPEAT this level AGAIN. I was never so tempted to rip something up in my whole life. Poor Anna just said, "Mom, did I pass?" I lied - what else could I do? It wasn't her fault she didn't pass. So now that I've tried 3 different swim locations, I am torn on what to do. If I send her to the Y for lessons, it is $90 for an 8 week session. I'm afraid I'll get the same results. If we go the "guaranteed results" route and go with Foss, it is well into the $250 range for a 12 week session. Even then they have about 9 different levels which makes me question whether or not she'd actually come out of there swimming or if they would just recommend 8 more 12 week sessions. I really want to foster her love of water because I really think it could be something she can be good at. I think maybe we'll just put in a pool, it will probably be cheaper : }  The only downside is that we would have to tie Sarah up on a leash if we let her outside because she can pretty much climb any fence you can build. Oh well, Anna has decided she is taking a little break from swimming and doing gymnastics anyways. Personally, I want to take a break from all organized sports at this point!

* I am COMPLETELY kidding about the pool so don't plan any big summer parties based on this post!