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Teaching Your Kids to Tread Water: Stage 1

First, teach your kids the basic concept of what they’ll do with their arms and legs to tread water. It won’t be pretty at first, but it will get them started. Here’s how.

The First Stage of Teaching Your Kids to Tread Water

Stand next to your child in the water. Ask him to dig holes with his hands and ride a bike with his legs. Let him grab you for support or a break whenever he needs to.

Tips for Teaching This Swimming Skill

  • Make sure your child’s chin is up, pointing at the sky.
  • Make sure his arms and legs stay under the water instead of thrashing in the air.
  • Have him practice until he feels confident treading water while you’re a pace or two out of his reach.
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Why Teaching Your Kids to Tread Water Matters More Than Teaching Them to Float

Lots of swimming lessons teach kids the back float early on, but that’s counterproductive. Why?

Why Teaching Kids to Tread Water Should Come Before Teaching Them to Float

Treading water is important for water safety. While many swimming programs emphasize floating, floating is actually a more advanced skill. Although it helps kids to learn the idea of how their body should be positioned in the water—horizontally—their body composition and shape make it very tough for kids to learn to float without moving.

Treading water, on the other hand, is an easy, natural motion for your child. It will give him confidence in the water and help to develop his feel for how his body moves in the water.

While it’s a good thing to learn to float eventually, focusing on floating when your kids are just starting their swimming lessons can leave them demoralized and ready to give up. If they can tread water effectively, they can start to gain the confidence that will help them move on to more advanced swimming skills quickly and easily.

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Teaching Swimming Body Shape and Position: Mastery

When your kids have learned how to glide in streamline position, you can start to teach them the idea of rolling in the water to make their swimming stronger. This land exercise is the precursor to a lifetime of rolling in the water.

Teaching Your Kids to Roll When They Swim

Eventually, most of your child’s time swimming will be spent rolling from side to side, slicing through the water, instead of on his stomach, pushing through the water. Because of the way the shoulder joint moves, swimming on your side allows you to be even longer. You can give your child a feel for this on land. Have him stand facing a wall with his body touching it. Ask him to stretch both hands up. Have him keep his fingertips against the wall and twist his torso from side to side.

When the side of his body twists close to the wall, that arm reaches higher than it does when his torso is flat against the wall. The same thing happens in the water. Doing this will also help him feel how his core and back muscles move when he rotates. Eventually, that’s what your child will aim for in the water.

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Time to Play! Body Shape and Position

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. This game helps kids learn how their bodies feel when they’re in the best position for swimming.

At home, have your child watch himself in the mirror, standing with his arms above his head. Hold something just above his fingertips and have him stretch to reach it. How does it feel? Turn the exercise—it’s a great stretch, by the way—into a game by making marks on the wall to see what his maximum reach is. Now it’s your turn. Have your kids stand on a stepstool or ladder to hold something just beyond your reach.