Highly Sensitive 6 Yr Old Girl

i kind of agree with DVMMOM. she is six, not three. in your situation, if it was me, i would be putting my foot down and having a grownup talk with her. she is a big girl and either she wants to swim or she doesn't. period. if she wants to but is nervous, that is okay - but being brave means doing something even if you're scared. if she really wants to do it maybe the two of you could work on a strategy for making it easier on her. but in the end she needs to make a decision and stop the tantrums, because that's what these are. a little compassion is fine, but at this point i would be getting firm. if as you say it's getting disruptive, then it needs to stop. one way or another.
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ETA: J., i had the following conversation with my 5 (almost 6) year old this morning. he started swim lessons today. he has finally gotten (just this year) to where he's not scared of swimming in general - but he still hates putting his head under, and won't jump in to me at all.

son: "mom i just don't WANT to go to swim lessons!"
me: "well let's talk about it, why don't you want to go? are you nervous?"
son: "yeah i just don't want to put my head under water."
me: "oh that's okay. hey if you don't want to put your head under water, you just tell them, 'i'm not ready to do that yet.' then you don't have to. you only do what you're comfortable with, ok?"
son: "okay!"
me: "it's totally okay to be nervous about something, but we still have to go. being brave means doing something even if we're scared. i bet by the time swim lessons are over YOU will decide that you want to try putting your head under water! but it will be when YOU decide, ok?"

end of problem. and it was so sweet - he goes to daycare while i am at work, and that is who is taking him to the swim lessons (great set up!). as soon as we walked in this morning, he walked right up to his teacher and said, "i'm just not ready to put my head under the water yet." i was so proud of him lol.

a lot of times i am so tickled, it just seems like when he can articulate what is wrong, it helps him SO much. it helps when he knows i support him no matter what, and it's okay to FEEL the way he does. but he also knows there are certain things he still is expected to do.

hth!

At this point, she should know what to expect, but I would talk with her ahead of time, and try to find out what exactly is getting her upset. Then let her know it's normal to be nervous, but this is her swim lesson that she wants to take and she's going to have to go through with it. If she knows she can get out of it by crying, she will continue to do so. She needs to learn to have more confidence in herself instead of thinking it's okay to keep running away from situations - if she never works up the courage to follow through with things like this, she won't be able to grow as a person. If you feel her behavior is severe enough that it's causing major disruption in your lives (which this sounds major enough for me), maybe consider a play therapist to help your daughter learn to cope with all the changes in her life which will be inevitable. But don't continue to enable her by letting her avoid or get out of anything just because it's new and different. Her choices are go to the swim lesson and decide to take part, or we stay home and no swim lessons at all.

My dd was very afraid of deep water and had a few incidences of refusing to do the swim lessons.

I took her swimming with me in between swim classes and practiced jumping in the deep water over and over and over again with me there catching her.

By the end of the day she was totally comfortable and went to her class more confident.

Some people just front-load anxiety. I know I do -- no matter what happens, I'm able to handle it after the fact, but I can be a ridiculous mess of jello going into things.

What I really recommend is getting to things insanely early. Like an hour, if need be. Tell your daughter straight-up: "I know this is stressful for you. We're getting here early, so you have a chance to calm down."

That way, you don't have to put her in the position of panicking in front of her friends, but you don't send the message that anxiety is a reason for missing out on life.

Just try to act calm and positive throughout, and break it up into little pieces for her, e.g., "Right now, all we're doing is getting out of the car. So let's just focus on that. Great, you're out of the car! Okay, let's walk together to the pool." Etc.

I have one of these too so I definitely can relate.

Maybe you could call the swim director and explain the situation and ask if you could sit with her until she feels comfortable. Sometimes my daughter just needs a little help from me until she realizes its going to be fun or that she is going to be ok on her own. I know this especially when it involves a boy overseeing her. She prefers girls/women.

Another thing that worked for my daughter when she started a new school with a new teacher and new friends last fall is by luck her teacher gave them "jitter juice" to drink on the first day. My daughter fell for this hook, line and sinker. I haven't had to use it yet for anything else, but I've told my daughter if and when she thinks she needs to have some for something else she is trying new, to let me know. Anyway, I believe you can look the recipe up online but its basically sprite and Hawaiian punch. Maybe its worth a shot.