Teaching Your Kids to Blow Bubbles: Stage 1

You won’t see a 200-meter bubble-blowing event in the next Olympics. Nonetheless, learning to blow bubbles is an important swimming skill. It’s a stepping stone to learning breath control, which your child will use whenever he’s swimming for the rest of his life. What’s so important about blowing bubbles, and how can you teach your kids to do it?

Teaching Your Kids to Blow Bubbles: A Swimming Lesson?

Blowing bubbles teaches your child to be comfortable putting and keeping his face in the water. It teaches him to take deep breaths in and to control letting his breath out. It encourages him to play with holding his breath. All of these things are integral elements of breathing while swimming.

A Swimming Lesson for Dry Land

You can practice blowing bubbles without getting into the water. Blow on your child’s hand. Have him blow on his own hand. This practice will help him to get the feel of blowing.  So will blowing bubbles with soapy water and a bubble wand. You can also practice with balloons. Always supervise young children with balloons, because balloons are a choking hazard.

You can practice blowing bubbles through a straw into water in a glass. Then, you can practice blowing bubbles directly in the water, in the tub or in a large bowl or pot of water. Remember to supervise your child even when you’re using these small amounts of water.

If your child is nervous about putting his face in the water, dip your hand into the water and stroke his face with your wet hand. Then encourage him to put just his lips into a saucer of water. Move from there to slightly more water in a bowl. From there, you can encourage him to put his lips into the water in a bathtub.

Do Hold Your Breath

The intake of breath that you need to start blowing bubbles is a step toward holding your breath. Blowing into a young child’s face causes him to hold his breath for a moment. This can also help you teach your child the feeling of holding his breath.

Time to Play! Blowing Bubbles

Kids learn by playing. The more you can make learning to swim fun for your kids, the more they’ll like it, the quicker they’ll learn, and the more fun you’ll have teaching them. Blowing bubbles helps your kids learn to get used to putting their faces in the water. It also helps with regulating breathing. You don’t have to be in the pool to work on this skill. Try this game at the kitchen table.

Have your child blow through a straw into a glass of soapy water and see what happens. Have fun with it. Who cares if there’s a spill? It’s all about making bubbles. Does how hard your child blows make a difference in the quality and quantity of bubbles? How about how fast he blows?

Why doesn’t that happen in the pool? Talk about it. Take a straw to the pool the next time you have a swimming lesson and try it out.

Time to Play! Blowing Bubbles

Kids learn by playing. The more you can make learning to swim fun for your kids, the more they’ll like it, the quicker they’ll learn, and the more fun you’ll have teaching them. One of the first steps of teaching your kids to swim is to help them learn to blow bubbles.

Blowing bubbles helps kids get used to having their faces in the water and learn to control and be aware of their breath. A game you’ve probably already played a million times can help your kids learn to blow bubbles, and you don’t need a pool to play it.

On land, practice blowing raspberries on each other’s tummies. It’s simple, it’s fun, and it helps kids who haven’t gotten used to putting their faces in the water get a good grasp of what they’ll be doing with their bodies. They’ll be able to practice the new thing—putting their faces in the water—after having mastered the blowing part.

Your ability, as a parent, to play games and practice skills on land that apply to swimming give you a huge advantage when you’re teaching your kids to swim. Your kids will be learning skills they’ll use in the pool without even realizing it, and you’ll all be getting tummy raspberries. What could be better than that?