how to – Page 31 – Teach Your Kids to Swim

September 21, 2010September 9, 2010

The Key Component of Giving Feedback When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim

When you’re teaching your kids to swim, there’s one key component of giving feedback that you have to use if you’re going to successful. What is it?

Touch.

Take time during the lesson to point out the physical sensations. It usually takes ten or fifteen minutes for a repetitive physical sensation to really register with your brain and muscles, but you can suggest paying attention to the sensations any time along the way. You might think this is advanced for your child, but he was doing these things himself when he learned to crawl, walk, and run.

Touch the part of your child’s body that you want him to focus on. Touch his hip while explaining that that’s where the movement of the kick comes from. Touch his thigh and explain that that’s the muscle that will be doing most of the work.

You can use your hands to help adjust your child’s body gently, guiding him to position himself. Don’t force him into position. If you feel resistance, don’t try to push past it. Use gentle touch and words.

When your kids are learning physical skills, your touch can help them to focus their attention and to feel secure as they’re learning. Also, hugs are fun!

September 20, 2010September 9, 2010

8 Surefire Steps for Giving Corrections That Don’t Lead to Tantrums When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim

Nobody’s perfect. You’re not going to do everything exactly right when you’re teaching your kids to swim, and they’re not going to get each skill the first time they try. The way you give feedback can make the difference between a tantrum and excited improvement. So how do you give your kids feedback that will keep them happy and help them move forward?

Keep your goal in mind.

They’re not perfect, and neither are you. Be gentle and constructive. If you find yourself getting frustrated, stop. Do something else or hop out of the pool and play a game or give each other hugs. If you’re feeling frustrated while you’re teaching your kids to swim, they’ll pick up on it, and that will make it harder for them to learn. If it’s not fun, take a break.

Be specific.

Specific praise is the most effection. The same concept applies to corrections. Be as specific as possible. Saying, “come on, you can do better” makes your child feel inadequate without giving him any help in trying to do better.

You can give feedback while your child is practicing the swimming skill you’re teaching, or you can take a break to explain, depending on how complex the idea you need to express is.

Give feedback immediately.

Give your child the feedback immediately, so that what his body is doing or has just been doing is fresh in his mind and so that he knows exactly what movement you’re talking about.

Break your feedback into steps.

Point out what is working.

I really like how hard you’re trying and how much attention you’re paying to what you’re doing.
I notice that your knees are bending a lot while you kick.
Your legs can push the water better if they stay straight.

Point out what isn’t working. Explain why it’s not working or isn’t the best approach. Make suggestions and ask for suggestions for how to improve. Include physical feedback. (More on physical feedback in the next post.)

Do you feel the air here when you kick? (At this point, you can touch your child’s foot or calf.) One way to tell when you’re keeping your legs straight is that you’ll stopping feeling the cold air there.
What ideas do you have about how to keep your legs straight?
What ideas do you have about how you’ll feel it when your legs are straight?
Show me how you kick with your legs straight.
Your legs are really staying straighter now. The changes you made really worked.

Follow up with more feedback. Use simple reminders.

After detailed feedback, you can use simple reminders as shorthand to remind your child of what you’ve already gone over together.

Great effort. Knees straight.

Give one correction at a time.

Be sure to give one correction at a time. A list of things to work on is too overwhelming. If you notice several things that need work, pick the one that you think will make the biggest difference to work on first. After your child has gotten comfortable with one change to what he’s doing, you can introduce the next.

Try exaggeration.

If your child is having trouble with a skill, try having him exaggerate what he’s doing wrong. For example, if he’s not straightening his arm to take a stroke, have him purposely keep his arms bent and tight against his sides, so that he can really feel the problem.

Give your kids permission to fail.

Trying to do it wrong also lightens the mood. You not only want to give your child permission to fail, you want to encourage it. When you’re teaching your kids to swim, you want to create an atmosphere of open exploration that will help your child to get a better understanding of his body’s relationship to the water. Making “doing it wrong” okay will help create this atmosphere. It will also give him the freedom to risk trying new things, because he won’t be afraid of the consequences of failure.

You can also try having him exaggerate what you’re asking him to do. Try having him keep his knees perfectly straight for some practice kicks on the side of the pool. Even though this would never happen in actual swimming, getting a body feel for the extreme can help him move in the direction of good form.

Try, try again (and take breaks!)

Remember to use a patient, nurturing, positive attitude. Learning is a process. It’s not always smooth or linear. Sometimes you need to try several approaches before you find one that works for your child or before what you’re trying to teach him really “clicks.” If you or your child starts to get frustrated, take a break or switch to practicing another skill or playing a game.

September 16, 2010September 8, 2010

Why the Wrong Kind of Praise Can Be Worse Than None at All When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim

Providing your kids with support each step of the way when you’re teaching them to swim can help them relax enough to move with patience and precision instead of frenetic energy. Generic praise isn’t enough, though. It can even be counterproductive. So how do you give effective praise?

Use what you know about your child when you’re teaching him to swim. Some kids respond well to frequent reinforcement. Others want you to keep out of their way. You know your child best. If you sense that he’s confused, frustrated, or distracted, help him regain his focus by giving him feedback.

Be specific and constructive when you’re praising your child’s progress. General feedback such as “you’re doing great” actually makes kids insecure about what they’re doing. If they know they’re doing great, but they don’t know how or why, they tend to be afraid that they’ll fail.

Instead, make your feedback as precise as you can. For example:

Instead of:

Great job!

Try saying:

I really like how hard you’re trying.
You’re doing a really good job of flicking your foot when you kick.

The first kind of praise, the generic “Great job!” kind, doesn’t give your child any information about how to keep getting positive feedback from you. Specific praise gives him a way to duplicate his success and feel good about his efforts. The better he feels about learning to swim, the more he’ll want to get into the pool for the next swimming lesson, and the more fun you’ll have teaching him to swim.

September 15, 2010January 21, 2011

Using Your Powers of Observation to Teach Your Kids to Swim

Part of the process of learning is a feedback loop. You try something, watch how it’s going, and adjust your approach accordingly. If you don’t watch how what you’re practicing is going, you risk making a habit of bad form. How can you hone your skills of observation to help your kids practice swimming skills the right way?

First, don’t expect very young kids to learn strokes very well or to move quickly in the water. Think of how difficult other activities requiring coordination, such as throwing or kicking a ball, are for them. They’re not going to look as polished as adults when they’re little, no matter how much they practice. They’re just not developmentally ready.

Your observations and feedback, though, can help your child to get the best feel for what he’s doing and the best approximation of good form that he’s ready to achieve.

While you’re teaching your kids to swim:

Watch them from the front, back, side, and underneath.
Start by watching the whole body.
Look for blips in the overall rhythm and unevenness in the sides of the body.
Look to see if the major movements are flowing.
Next look at the smaller body parts involved in the movement, to see if they’re supporting or working against the overall movement.
Finally, watch parts of the body that aren’t specifically involved in the practice.

Even when they’re just blowing bubbles, you can look for tension in their arms and legs, so that you can help them relax. When they’re practicing kicking, you can watch not only the overall movement, the feet, the hips, and the knees, but also the position of their heads and the expressions on their faces. Use your peripheral vision to watch the quality of movement of the whole body when you’re focusing on one body part. Even if you don’t act on what you notice right away, the information you get from careful observation will be useful as your lessons progress.