Swimming can be pretty basic topic. We think of the subject as limited to certain issues: learning how to swim; dealing with water fears; being more safe around water; and stroke development. But there is so much more in between about swimming that instructors and parents don’t look close enough at. Here are my Top 5 overlooked swim issues:
#1: Group lessons are often a disappointment. To your hopes of safety. To your child’s swim progress. To the instructor who cannot spend as much time with your kid due to a higher ratio. Private one-on-one as opposed to group lessons are an issue about deciding if you want quality versus quantity. Payout in group lessons is delivered to families with a unique set of criteria.
#2. Swim ability isn’t relevant to age in the ways we think. Let’s say you have a water frighten 5-year old and a 3-year old who is something likened to a dolphin. Sounds backwards, right? Suddenly the older child takes off and within 4 lessons, is doing the backstroke across the pool — extremely common progress expectations at this age no matter how long it took beforehand for your kid to love the water. Yet the 3-year old who has been swimming solo longer is limited by their coordination and development issues, unable to do the strokes as well. Who is the better swimmer now?
#3: Goggles deliver immediate confidence. Kids feel better when they can see what they are doing. If the only way we can learn to swim is by putting our heads in the water, give ‘um a good reason to do so with a pair of goggles. Kids will say ‘I don’t like to wear these’ because they say that about anything they haven’t put enough experimentation into. I don’t think anything that can ultimately increase your water safety is a crutch.
#4: Grabbing for help is never okay. It’s not okay for a child to grab a parent or a kid in the water for any reason at any time, and you’ve got to break this habit early. Instead, to help your emerging swimmer, teach them to flip over on their backs when they need assistance. You can assist them by holding onto the back of their head and towing to safety. This is a great activity to do with babies. Also, create pool games that involve grabbing the side of the pool or toys, but not people.
#5: Thrashing isn’t swimming. I’ve had parents tell me their child is ready for stroke development when they cannot swim the shortest distance or width of a pool without being freaked out. We cannot push our kids on this issue because safety is such a concern. The best way to tell how comfortable your kid or student is in the water is to ask them to float on their front for a few seconds and then calmly roll over onto their backs and float for another moment or two. Body language says it all with swimming.
Great advice for such an important topic.