Teaching your Kids to Swim

Is it Necessary to Enroll the Kids into a Swimming Program?

It’s a dilemma. Like every other decision, there are advantages and disadvantages to each choice. The structured classes for kids swimming lessons offer: expert instruction, trained lifeguards, the authority of someone the child doesn’t know, peer involvement (seeing how other children do it), release of pressure (the child is not the center of attention and can relax) and set times that keeps everybody on schedule. The big downsides of instructor classes is the unfamiliarity your child has with the people involved and the place.

If you choose to teach the child to swim on your own, then you have the advantages of familiarity with the child’s learning style, you may give undivided attention, more flexibility with scheduling and you already have a bonding relationship through which to offer praise and encouragement. The disadvantages are that children may listen to a stranger more readily than a parent, the parent may not know some of the best techniques for teaching or may even teach some incorrect breathing or movements. So, here are a few guidelines if you decide to teach your children how to swim.

Teach Kids to Swim

The funnest and easiest way to start a kids swimming lesson is to start off with a game to introduce some importantbasics of swimming for kids.

Pre-Swimming Lesson Games

• Bubble up a Storm: The child and parent both blow bubbles in the water but with just the mouth immersed.
• Wet Faces: Begin with the chin and both of you dunk to a count of 3. Then gradually increase how much of the face is in the water, the mouth, the cheeks, the eyes and so on.
• Breathe and Blow: Once the child is comfortable with the whole face in the water, then both of you do longer breath holds, head dunked and more bubble blowing.
• Rescuing the Dinosaur: Take a waterproof toy and place it under the water within easy reach of the child’s hand but requiring the face getting wet and have him/her retrieve it.
• What’s At the Bottom of the Sea?: Place objects in the bottom of the pool visible only if the child puts her face under and have her tell you what they are.

Now you can get in to more of the nitty gritty of teaching a child to swim. Once your child is comfortable with the water—face in the water, holding and blowing breath, seeing things at the bottom of the pool, then you can start the training.

• Have the child hold onto the side of the pool and kick his legs.
• Use a kickboard and have the child kick around the pool.
• Hold the child under the arms and let him paddle around with his arms and kicking until he is really comfortable with the feel of the water.
• Hold the child around the chest and have him use his arms in the swimming mode (Demonstrate the proper arm movements).
• Still holding the child, have him move his legs in the proper way for swimming (Demonstrate the proper leg movements).
• Now, still supporting the child, have him/her move both arms and legs in the swimming manner.
• When the arm and leg movements are learned and the child is comfortable with both, have him/her, unsupported, come to you from a few feet away. Now they are swimming!

Beware! Many parents rely on flotation devices to teach children how to swim and to wear while in the pool. Because these often come off in the water when children jump in, they can give a child and a parent a scare after the false sense of security is internalized from the floatation device.