The #1 Rule of Swim Lessons

I have a sneaking suspicion that one of my swim lesson kids is not using the toilet when he needs to. He is a very nice kid, and doing really well so far, and his parents are not at all (except for this story) crazy. I like them a lot. But at some point during almost every private lesson I've taught for this kid this summer, he says, "Miss Leah, I need to go pee." As I usually do with kids who say that, I try to distract him and say, "OK, you can go right after we do X activity or skill." By the time we've done that, they've usually forgotten their need to go. Works well, has for years. But this kid is different. Whenever I try that line on him, he says, "No, I need to go real bad! Right now!" and won't give up. So I relent, and let him go to the bathroom. I have been peed on by kids in swim lessons before, and I would not like for it to happen again.

Except he doesn't go to the bathroom. He runs over to his parents, stands there for a few minutes with water dripping off of his suit, trying to put on his shoes to go to the bathroom, and then turns and runs back to me. The first time or two that this happened, I thought that the parents had just told him to get back in the pool, as my mother would have done to me. But today the mom made some comment about "not making it," which makes me think that he is not, in fact, being talked back into the pool, but rather, that he is peeing on the deck through his suit. I have no way of confirming this, and I'm sure as hell not going to ask, but yeah. I think that's what's happening. And I am none too happy about it. As I'm sure the lifeguards will be if any of them read this **waves to lifeguards who found their way here from Facebook**. I try to console myself with the thought that he's not doing it in the pool, so there's that, and also that rain will come wash the deck soon enough. But all it does is reinforce in my mind that one should always wear shoes on the deck at my pool.