To Swim or Not To Swim

Well, tonight's swim time started out well. Emma, Emma's friend, and Natalie (and also Mers) showing off their bathing suits to each other. They were running around, having fun and smiling. Natalie was excited to be there.
Here Natalie is with Emma's friend, showing that they both have on flowered bathing suits.

Then, tragedy struck and Emma's friend fell off the standing platform. This is a raised area they put in the pool so the kids can stay in the water and still be standing. Otherwise, the depth is 3 1/2 feet, which is over most of the 4 year old's heads. She was under for a couple of seconds before the life guard and teacher both converged to get her up. She was fine from that point and even made it through the lesson. Natalie seemed fine too with it. However, she seemed to have post-trama where she did less and less during the lesson. Finally, during the last jump in and swim, she said she had to go the potty. I knew this wasn't the case as we had already gone right at the start of swim lesson. So, I got up and took her to the potty where she said she wanted to go home. She was afraid of the water. So, we went back and changed and left for home. I noticed in the car I had cut myself on the bleacher getting up abruptly when I saw the life guard jumping in--who else does something like that?

So, Natalie says she won't go back to swim lessons. I tried saying we would pray about it and have God help us have the courage. So, what is a Mommy to do? Should I try and make her go and finish up or pull back? I don't want to have her hate swimming.