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Girl swims with bound hands and feet, Dad watches
Filed under: Just For Dads, Activities: Babies, Health & Safety: Babies, Gadgets, Sex
A father in China tied his ten-year-old daughter's hands and feet and let her swim for three hours in a river because he believed the exercise would help her achieve her goal of swimming the English Channel.
The father, who is a teacher, has been coaching the girl because they cannot afford a real swim teacher.
"Her swimming skills are perfect and she insisted on doing this," said Huang Daosheng. "It's not dangerous because, first, her swimming skills are really good and second, I was swimming with her, staying close to her," the father said. "I had her when I was 35, so she is my heart. I would never play around with her life."
This really makes me mad. Most kids go through a spell where they think if they flap hard enough, they'll be able to fly. That doesn't mean parents should let them jump off the roof, though.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
10-05-2007 @ 6:03PM
pbhj said...>>> "Most kids go through a spell where they think if they flap hard enough, they'll be able to fly."
Your analogy sucks (not to put too fine a point on it!). The girl is capable ... in fact you report that he "let her swim". So it's more like letting a kid that can climb be the lead climber.
In fact you also say that "he believed the exercise would help her achieve her goal of swimming the English Channel.".
Now if that truly is her goal (not his, that's a big IF) then it seems quite commendable if a little extreme.
Reply
10-05-2007 @ 6:29PM
Sarah said...Commendable? How can swimming with her hands and feet tied help her swimming skills? Her extreme survival skills maybe. Her fear of her father and the water maybe. Sounds like she was just somehow treading water for three hours and it sounds horrible. Assuming the fathers heart is in the right place, he is dangerously misguided.
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10-05-2007 @ 8:40PM
Uly said..." "Her swimming skills are perfect and she insisted on doing this," Huang Daosheng said in a telephone interview. The girl, who lives in the city of Zhangjiajie in Hunan province, got the idea after seeing something similar on a local television program, he said."
Don't know if that's *true* or not, of course, but it's certainly something to consider when talking about this.
Reply
10-05-2007 @ 7:56PM
Roger Sinasohn said...I'm half-and-half on this...
When I was in training, we used to cut car innertubes into giant rubber band things and then put them around our ankles to help with practicing the "wiggle kick"* that is used in the butterfly stroke. So that part, I can go with.
The hands thing, however, I can't see how that could possibly help. For leg strengthening, one would hold onto a kick board and kick, but without some sort of float to hold onto, you're not helping your legs by having your hands tied.
I'd bet that you've got a stage-dad on your hands and that it's his dream she's trying to live.
*that's what they call it at my kids' swim school; I forget the real name.
Reply
10-06-2007 @ 11:24PM
queenoqueens said...Perhaps this guy should get together with the dad who made his kid run 40 miles a day and open a training center.
http://www.parentdish.com/2007/08/27/chinese-8-year-old-runs-2-200-miles/
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