Prepare your child for swimming lessons!

I began instructing swimming lessons at the Covington Aquatic Center 4 years ago, two years later I transferred to one of the top swimming academies, Tiger Mt. Aquatics. In the last four years I have trained with many different instructors, observed and learned different styles, and have fully developed my own. There was one issue I often encountered with beginner swimmers. When parents would bring their children in for their first day of lessons, many children would be terrified because they had never been in a pool before. If they had been in a pool, most were still very very uncomfortable - which makes the learning process for swimming much slower. It would be most effective for parents to practice a few basic skills with their children before enrolling them into swimming lessons.

To give a child a head start when they arrive to swimming lessons, consider working on the following:

1. Show them the water is a fun place. Many children are terrified and don’t know what to expect when they first arrive at the pool, especially if they are uncomfortable and being handed off to an instructor they don’t know. Take them to the pool a couple times and just play! Get some floaties if you’d like, play with a ball, throw some water toys and laugh!!
2. SPLASH! Most consider splashing to be worthless and sometimes annoying. However, splashing is actually a fun way to get children accustomed to the water! Splash the water with some toys or with your hands, this is very interesting to the little ones because they can visually see what effects their movements create in the water. When splashing, don’t ever push a huge wave in the childs face, but instead splash infront of them and try to just have a few drops land on both your faces, you can laugh or smile, sing, or even just talk to them “wow you got your face wet a little, how awesome!!”. This will show the little one that getting your face wet is fun!
3. Adjusting on their backs. For someone who’s never been in the water, being asked to lay on their back and relax may seem frightening. Take the child on their back and rest their head on your shoulder with their cheek next to yours and their body infront of you (you will have to bend your knees to level your shoulder with the surface of the water, so the child lays flat). You can hold their lower back or whatever feels comfortable to you both. This position will help the child feel more secure. The cheek to cheek makes them feel close to you, and therefore more safe. Sometimes you may have difficulty getting them into this position because they may not like the feeling of water in their ears. If so, try singing and moving backwards side to side as this will cause the water to glide past them and is usually very comforting to the little one.
4. Kick! When infants are in the water they usually do a “froggy kick” where they bend both legs and then straighten them simultaneously - very similar to crawling movements. The basic kick taught in swimming is the up and down straight leg “flutter kick”. Try to take your little one on their belly and have them gently wrap their arms around your neck, their legs should be in your arms reach - take them and move them up and down while explaining to the child that they should try to keep their legs as straight as possible. This will save them alot of time in lessons because they will be able to spend time learning other skills and not just working on their kick with the instructor during the whole class.
5. Paddle paddle! To help a child understand the concept of swimming, take a toy and throw it. Then hold your child to your side with your outer arm wrapped on their side supporting them on the side and bottom, and use your other arm to help guide their hands (make sure to have their face in clear sight for you because you want to make sure they can comfortable hold their head out of the water). Tell them that they need to get the toy! Explain, that to move they must paddle their arms REALLY big, reaching as far as they can and then pulling all the water behind them. Then start moving ONLY when they paddle. If they just reach - remind them to pull, and then move forward. That will help connect the movement to the effect - if you pull the water behind you, it will help you move forward. Make sure to let the child know they are doing a great job!!

Children are easily discouraged and if they feel they are doing a bad job they may stop trying. If you give them high-5’s or verbally tell them how awesome they are, along with other reassuring things, water will be so much more fun for them! Make sure that when you go swimming with the little one you are in a safe area, if you are not a very strong swimmer consider going to a place with a lifeguard on duty. Working on the above skills will help a child become more comfortable in the water environment as well as more ready for lessons, and will make the transition from swimming with someone they know to someone they don’t much much easier. Have fun and be safe!