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Timing the Stroke When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim

Now that your kids are moving in the right direction when they swim, you can start to teach them timing. Why? It’s natural for kids to move in fits and starts when they’re learning the front crawl. Transitioning to a smoother motion is all about timing.

During this stage of learning the freestyle, your child will naturally start to play with the timing of his arm movements in the water. Encourage him to do this.

  • What happens if you start moving one arm back while the other arm is pulling back?
  • What happens if you start moving one arm back while the other arm is returning to streamline position? (This is what we’re aiming for.)

When you’re teaching your kids to swim, foster an awareness of timing and the different results different approaches to timing yield. Timing makes the difference between a spluttering stroke and one that glides like it’s on rails.

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Front Crawl: Moving in the Right Direction

When you’re teaching your kids to swim, the front crawl is the pinnacle of achievement. Hey, this looks like real swimming! At first, though, it can look a lot like splashing around. You can help your kids make their stroke more effective by concentrating on the direction of their motion. Here’s how.

Have your child concentrate on pulling back with his hand, not pushing down on the water. Remember that pushing backwards helps you go forward and pushing down helps you go up. When your arm is in the water, pull it back, and don’t push it down. Any part of the motion that’s downward is moving your child up in the water, which is not the direction he wants to go. Not only is it not moving him forward, it’s also increasing drag and slowing him down. Pushing sideways also moves him in the wrong direction. Focus on pulling back.

Once he’s comfortable with this, let him practice it until kicking simultaneously comes naturally. The combination of moving the water in the right direction and kicking at the same time will transform the way the front crawl works for your child.

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How Does Grabbing Water Help Your Kids Learn to Swim?

The front crawl is a complicated swimming skill, and you won’t be able to teach it all at once. Here’s a tip to help your kids get better at propelling themselves forward while they swim.

Grab Some Water to Make Each Stroke Count

Ask your child to think about grabbing a handful of water and pulling it down to his hip. Have him imagine that he’s trying to keep the water from falling out of his hand. He should keep his fingers together and his palm gently cupped. How does it feel?

Play with this for a long time. Keeping the water from slipping through your fingers helps to make each stroke count.

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Time to Play! Front Crawl

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. Here’s a great way to practice teaching the front crawl in a fun way.

Have your kids race. This isn’t just any race, though. Race with imagination! What’s the rush? Where’s the fire? (Probably not in the swimming pool.) Imagine you’re Paul Revere riding to alert colonists that the British are coming. Imagine you’re Cinderella racing to get home from the ball before she turns into a pumpkin. (Do I have the details of that story right?) Imagine you’ve got to get to home base before being thrown out.