I had an incident in a pool when I was 11. I knew how to swim but never had the confidence again till I was 17, when I went to a beach with a friend who was a good swimmer. It was hot weather and I was jealous of him being in the cool sea, so I just decided to swim out and join him.
Providing Grace has the ability to swim a little, perhaps getting her to go into the sea and have some fun is the way to go. Just encourage her to swim in the shallows and she will build her own confidence.
Yes that’s the way she was it was very hot everyone in the water having fun and she wanted to get in too.
Julie I would suggest that you encourage her by saying that she will miss out on doing things with friends, as she gets older, because they can swim. Give her a good reason to want to learn how to swim and she will overcome her fears… it may just take a bit longer that expected. 
I have seen young people on holidays, having games in the pools or the sea, and you often see the less capable swimmers sitting round the edge of the pool just watching. I am sure Grace wouldn’t want to be one of them.
If shes scared of the water why force her to go in it???
Get something else to interest her.
Horse riding.
Skateboarding.
Morris dancing.
All as dangerous but she might like them better than thinking that she is going to drown.
Well said Barry:-)
How about it Julie ? I think it might be good for you both .
As a prrson who has been scared of just about everything, I have to say that threats do not work. In fact they have the opposite effect. Sorry.
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Yep … well said … especially the Morris Dancing
The other problem with such activities as swimming is that we have to ‘disrobe’ and expose our fabulous bodies. This can be another big problem for girls of all ages.
Agree.
With my daughter as a 5 year old We went to Ireland on holiday I carried into the sea when the water went up to my knees she screamed her head off.( The next day we read the sea was calm but a 8 year child drowned that day)
Did the same 2 years later in Florida in the hotel swimming pool she hated it never forced her again.
She is now at the age of 46 last year we walked over the bridge at Embankment station and I said “O look at that” she was petrifyd and said I cant look at dark water.
After the second time when I relised that she was scared of water never ever tried to force her to swim again.
I think with my fear of water I’ve missed out on many thing galty I want Grace to enjoy her life fully including having fun in the water. She is starting horse riding in October I can only suggest Morris dancing but I think that’s all men isn’t it 
You are coming across as a MCP or sow in your case.
Oh interesting I’ve only ever seen men doing if previously. Usually outside pubs in the summer. Just realised haven’t seen any this year, hope they aren’t dying out !
No, as I understand it, thanks to the advances made towards the equality of women in our western society, many Morris dancing societies now have women members!
I’ve always found male Morris Dancing very sexy :shock:
To get back to the original problem
I ALWAYS wanted to be in water and have some kind of swimming pool (no doubt a throwback to being in the womb).
At primary school we trekked to the nearest indoor swimming pool now and again but it was scary. We were exprcted to learn how to dive in (from a sitting position) and teacher would sometimes give one of the girls a push.
No way could I put my nose under water and that ruined it for me.
Its a shame but seems the Leftie PC lot are trying to ban them
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Well! Even if I were a woman, I cannot possibly imagine anything sexy about men with ribbons around their hats and bells on their trouser legs?
Then, I suppose, there are the pigs’ bladders on sticks, although I’m not sure there’s anything sexy about them either.
Mind you, perhaps Morty might be turned on by them!
I like tradition, and whilst I can’t see myself ever taking part in Morris dancing, I can see it being an English equivalent of Scottish country dancing in which I do participate.
Whilst I do, on special occasions, wear a skirt (or a kilt, actually!), I draw the line at bells on my legs.
Ah, yes. I’d heard about the blacked faces being seen as offensive…
…by proxy on the part of white do-gooders! :roll:
WELL IT WAS !!! so there and I was at primary school when I first saw great big adult men thumping around with their bells dingling … perfect timing.
I never went for that stuff they did where they interlocked blades or sticks or whatever they had … nah … really naf.
A personal choice of course, which I respect.
Although I can’t see it as sexy in any way, I do like to watch Morris dancing and I find it, like many other traditions, very interesting. As I’ve said elsewhere, I should find it very sad if we lose these ancient traditions yet, as Galty pointed out, the hand-wringers are doing their best to do just that, just because they are personally ‘offended’ by them.
It’s also interesting that there are quite different Morris traditions in different parts of the country, and the variation is sometimes quite pronounced.
One sequence, which I found particularly impressive, involves six swords which are waved about in various ways and which is completed by the six being interlocked in a hexagonal shape. I think they might then place this, in a menacing sort of way, around someone’s neck. :shock:
Just as a matter of interest, Rachel, are some regional variations on the Morris more sexy than others? 
I’m not experienced with regional varieties and have seen Morris Dancing performed less than a dozen times.
The last time was in Richmond upon Thames when I was about 20
There was a hobby horse thing and the guy came up to my friend and snapped its teeth in her face. She screamed (as you do)
It’s crazy really a tradition going back far longer than we even had any black faces in England and I have heard no black person who has been slightest bit offended. They are usually puzzled though that’s by the entire idea of it not the black faces.
We are unfortunate to live in the ‘PC Age’, where a minority of people - the ‘professionally offended’ - dictate how we should live our lives.
At any other time in our history they would be ignored or even laughed at but, thanks to our wishy washy government and authorities in general, the whingers know that they have the power to put everyone else in fear of their unfounded accusations.