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Time to Play! Feeling the Water

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. Helping your kids get a feel for the water will give them a leg up when they’re learning every swimming skill. This game can help give them awareness of how moving their bodies in the water feels.

Play Rock-a-bye Baby. (If your kids are older, you can make it campy, even though they’ll secretly enjoy it.) Start by holding your child just at the surface of the water. When you get to “the cradle will fall,” allow your arms to drop a few inches quickly. Your child will get a feel for being in the water by himself with all the security of your arms. After you’ve played a few times, talk about the physical sensations of rocking in the water and falling. Is it fun? Does it feel delicious?

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Teaching Kids to Feel the Water: Mastery

At each stage of the learning process and for each swimming skill you teach, devote some time specifically to feeling the water and its interaction with the body. When he’s learned to put his head underwater, to do the streamline position, and to kick, have your child experiment and explore.

What happens if you push off from the side with your arms or legs? What happens if you move your arms backwards? Forwards? Up or down? This experimentation is critical, because these things are all different than they are on dry land. Moving your arms backwards propels you forward in the water. Moving your arms down propels you up. Starting to understand this will give your child confidence and control in the water.

Have your child solve problems. How can you go backwards in the water? How can you go forward? Which movements and positions move you with the least effort? Which movements and positions move you with the least splash? Help your child learn to push back to go forward and down to go up.

Use play. Practice moving through the water like a fish or a ninja, disturbing the water as little as possible. How big a splash can you make for fun? How do you do it? Practice sitting on the steps and hitting the water with the flat, broad parts of your body. Okay, now how small a splash can you make? Can you slice your hand into the water without seeing any ripples at all? Practice no-ripple swimming. You’re learning to sneak up on Mom or Dad in the water, so that you can pounce on them.

Kids will discover these things on their own by playing in the water, but you can speed up the process by specifically guiding your child.

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Time to Play! Feeling the Water

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.  Helping them learn what it feels like to move in the water is critical for making their experience learning to swim as fast and easy as possible. It’s easy to make it fun. Try these experiments for teaching your kids how it feels to move in the water.

What does being in the water feel like? Does it feel like flying? Like being an astronaut? Like going down a slide? Like jumping in a bouncy house? Like swinging on a swing? Like riding a bike? You can build a whole session of imaginative play around any one of these ideas.

You’ll have so much fun that nobody will realize you’re gaining body knowledge that’s key to learning to swim. It won’t feel like a swimming lesson. It will feel like a bonus at the end of the swimming lesson. In reality, though, it might be the most important swimming skill you teach all day.

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Teaching Kids to Feel the Water: Stage 2

Once your kids have played with moving their bodies in the water and focusing on what that feels like, you can move into deeper water in the next swimming lesson. What do you do once you’re in deeper water, and how do you keep them feeling confident and expand on this swimming skill?

Stage 2 of Teaching Kids to Get a Feel for the Water

While you hold your child, lower your body into the water or move into the deeper water in the swimming pool, where you can still stand comfortably, so that the water is up to your shoulders. Make sure that you keep your child’s face level with your own to keep from accidentally getting water into his nose or mouth. Walk around in the water so that your child feels the flow of water around his body.

In this swimming lesson, experiment with different ways of moving your arms and legs through the water. Make big splashes. Make little splashes. You can do this while you’re holding him or while he sits on the swimming pool steps.

Once your child is confident in the water while you’re holding him close, create a bit of distance between your bodies and practice what you’ve already learned that way. Play with bouncing in the water so that your child starts to develop a sense of his own buoyancy and balance in the water. You can progressively move your bodies farther apart until you’re holding your child just under the arms or by the hands. You’re also teaching him to be confident on his own in the water. You can combine this with practicing getting into the pool.