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Ready, Set, Swim!

If you’ll be making a lot of trips to the swimming pool for lessons this summer, do yourself a favor and put together a kit of supplies you’ll take with you every time you go. Make a list and keep it with your pool kit. Check the list before you go to the pool, and replenish the supplies when you get home.

Prepare to Get into the Pool

Before you get into the swimming pool, gather the toys, equipment and clothing you’ll need, and plan what you’ll do. This post will focus on the toys and equipment you’ll need.

Toys and equipment

Depending on what skills you’ll be practicing, you might want to bring toys that will help you to teach your kids to swim. They can be specialized, or they can just be things you have around the house.

Washcloths and hand towels are great for providing a cool, comfortable place for your child to sit on the edge of the pool. They’re also good for games.

Coins serve not only as something to retrieve from the bottom of the pool but also as built-in motivation to retrieve it.

Foam noodles and rings for the pool can be great teaching tools, but you can also use toys that aren’t designed specifically for swimming, such as regular balls and other toys. Just make sure you know which ones float and which ones sink.

Dog toys are great for kids to play with in the pool. They come in a huge variety of sizes and fun shapes.

Whatever objects you use, make sure that they’re appropriate for your child’s developmental level.

Tools like kickboards, inflatable armbands, and fins can be useful for getting kids to feel comfortable and confident in the water, but they also have downsides:

  • They can give your child too much confidence. You don’t want to experience the moment when your child, not yet water safe, jumps into the pool because he forgot that he didn’t have his armbands on.
  • They don’t teach kids to swim. Being in the water without one of these tools doesn’t feel the same as being in the water with them; time spent using them isn’t helping with actual swimming skills.
  • They can become a crutch. If you don’t ditch them early enough in the learning process, your child will start to feel uncomfortable in the water without them and won’t be willing to give them up easily.
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6 Keys Aspects of the Swimming Kick to Focus on When You Teach

In most strokes, kicking provides stability for your body while the arms provide most of the propulsion. The kick helps your body to stay aligned. In the early learning stages, having a solid flutter kick will help stabilize your child as he learns to position his body in the water and to use his arms to propel himself. Here are six important aspects of the kick to focus on.

The key to the kick is coordination and ankle flexibility.

Six Aspects of the Kick to Focus On

  1. There should be a lot of movement in the ankle, but from the hip to the ankle should be supple but almost straight. The knees should bend very little. It’s not like pedaling a bike. Think length and flow.
  2. Use the muscles at the top of the thigh to move the whole leg.
  3. The leg shouldn’t have side-to-side movement.
  4. The kick should be narrow, with ankles fairly close to each other.
  5. The kick isn’t long like a stride on land is. The up-down movement should be contained within the movement of the water that your arms creates. You can feel this area when you move your body. When you get to the part of the water that hasn’t been moved by your body, your leg will feel more resistance. Keep your kick out of that higher-resistance water.
  6. Ankle flexibility is really important. While your whole leg moves, the foot is like a flipper that provides most of the benefit of the movement. It should feel like you’re trying to flick a shoe off your foot.
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How to Set Expectations When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim

It’s hard to get where you want to go if you don’t have a clearly defined goal. How do you define that goal when you’re teaching your kids to swim?

Think of what your child is capable of on land. If your baby is just learning to crawl, he’ll be able to similarly explore moving his body in the water, but don’t expect mastery. If your child can walk and run with great coordination, you can expect him to develop similar coordination in the water with practice. Keep your expectations reasonable.

Think about how much practice it took on land to develop the level of mastery your child has, though. Remember the process of learning to crawl, walk or run. At the beginning, it looked awkward and ungainly. Only with time and lots of practice did those movements become a natural way for your child’s body to move. Swimming will be the same. Keep your expectations reasonable.

Keep your expectations about form reasonable. Good form will help your child swim farther and faster, but his body might not be capable of good form. Swimming is like dance, tennis, or golf. Kids learn quickly, but until their minds and bodies are developed enough, don’t expect them to have the level of mastery you’d see in an adult.

Be aware of what it takes to achieve mastery. Athletes practice for a long time thinking about their form. At some point, it becomes second nature—internalized. Without thinking about it, they continue to improve. Learning to swim involves thinking and feeling in a very conscious way for a long time, and there’s a lot to think about and a lot to feel. At some point, the knowledge starts to move into your child’s body instead of just his head, just like walking or riding a bike. Many recent studies have pointed out that the amount of practice required to achieve mastery of a skill is ten thousand hours. It would take your child many years to get that much practice. Have you spent ten thousand hours of your life swimming? That’s an hour a day for almost thirty years. In the meantime (you know what’s coming!), keep your expectations reasonable.

Have I driven you crazy with the “keep your expectations reasonable” mantra? I’ve repeated it because it’s so important. The way your child feels about swimming will depend in large part on your feelings and your feedback. If your expectations are reasonable, you’ll feed his motivation to keep trying. If your expectations are unreasonable, you’ll be frustrated, he’ll be frustrated, neither of you will have any fun, and he’ll want to stay out of the pool and quit rather than disappoint you.

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9 Tricks to Create a Winning Atmosphere When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim

In order to learn to swim, your kids have to be receptive to learning. You can create an atmosphere that’s conducive to learning by remembering these 9 Do’s.

Do trust yourself.

You know your kids, and you have it in you to teach them to swim.

Do relax.

Your kids will pick up on how you’re feeling. Practice relaxation techniques if you need to. Set reasonable expectations and don’t rush. Take a break if you feel yourself getting anxious.

Do be patient with yourself.

You’re not going to do this perfectly. The beautiful part is that you don’t have to. You and your kids can and will have fun while you’re teaching them to swim, even if you do (and you will!) make mistakes along the way. Don’t beat yourself up over the mistakes. Just move on.

Do be patient with your child.

Your kids will make mistakes, too. They’ll probably have some bad days when they’re just not in the mood. Even when they are trying, there will be some things that won’t come quickly or easily. If you find yourself getting frustrated, take a break. The most important thing is that you’re having fun working together to do something that will keep your kids safe.

Do use a nurturing, positive attitude.

If you provide emotional support and make it fun, your kids will want to get into the pool for their next swimming lesson.

Do be calm but enthusiastic.

You set the tone. If you freak out, your kids will, too. Be enthusiastic, but keep calm so that your kids will be confident and ready to learn.

Do be honest.

If you tell your kids you’ll do something, do it. If you tell them you won’t, don’t. Never dunk your kids if you’ve told them you won’t. Never tell them, “just one more time,” if you plan on having them do something three more times. They have to be able to trust you to relax enough to learn, and being honest with them will build that trust.

Do think of the unspoken message your actions send your child.

If you make a big deal about it when your kids make mistakes or get water in their noses, they’ll get the message that those things are a big deal. Respond the way you want your kids to understand.

Do have fun!

Keep your eyes on the prize. You’re helping your kids become water safe, but you’re also spending time with them and building memories. Have fun. Give them hugs and get some back. Learning to swim is critical to your kids’ safety, but the process of teaching them to swim can be fun for everyone.