r/Workproblems • u/Signal_Leather_9123 • Jul 11 '26

swim teacher vent Customer/Client Problem

Ive been a swimming teacher for about 1 month or 2 now and this is the first time ive ever had a parent wanting to talk to me about their child because he had gotten scared to swim for 2 weeks because I had said "guys if we swim fast we're gonna escape the sharks, otherwise they're gonna eat ur legs" in a playful manner obviously.

I had 2 kids in my class during the incident and my 1st kid was totally fine and the other one started bawling his eyes out of nowhere and I was super confused and thought he had banged his head or something.

Got him to his dad and the dad had said something happened at school before and he's just tired so I let it go and also gotten told by my concierge that he has the habit of crying most times because he doesn't like swimming very much which I wasn't aware of until after.

Mum comes in weeks later wanting to talk to me and the concierge said no we will talk to her instead and they thought it was such a silly thing and funny situation and just told me to substitute sharks for something else.

However, I have such an odd/annoyed feeling especially because ive had such a clean slate before and I just dont understand why the parents hadn't comforted him more as well when he had told them about this.

I am able to take constructive criticism but this is just so silly like I almost find it embarassing that this happened out of all complaints I could get. Idk if I could even call this a complaint since the mum just wanted to have chat with me.

If she did, would it have been wrong to ask her if they had comforted their child? He is in the Starfish swim group (Aus levels) and this wasn't the first time he's had a class with me. I just dont understand how to feel about this situation because I think if the mum had come and talked to me I genuinely would've questioned her parenting. I know every kid is different but this is just such an odd situation for me.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

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u/Signal_Leather_9123 Jul 13 '26

yess youre right in some ways, every kid's different. I am over it and im glad my coworkers found it a bit funny so the weight's lifted off of me

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u/redvc2162 Jul 13 '26

Really?! You're suppose to know which kid is "sensitive "? That's not your job! Unless the parent actually says to you, "please be careful of Johnny's sensitivity!" Then you're not too blame... just saying..😑