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Teaching Swimming Body Shape and Position: Stage 2

Yesterday’s post showed how you can start to teach kids swimming body shape and position on dry land. Here’s how to move the swimming lesson into the pool.

The Next Stage of Teaching Kids Swimming Body Shape and Position

In the pool, you can practice doing streamline glides on the stomach, back, and sides to get a feel for the differences. Finally, have your child concentrate on the difference between how his body moves in the water when he’s dog paddling and how it moves when he’s streamlined. Does one way of moving feel more like real swimming?

Ask your child to try things in the water. How would your body move if you were really slippery? What could you do to feel slippery in the water? How would your body move if it weighed nothing? What could you do to feel like you weigh nothing in the water? (Practice shifting balance to see what feels more like weightlessness.)

When you’re starting out, stand just a few pace from the edge of the pool and let your child aim for the pool, preferably ending right at the steps so that he doesn’t have to lift his head and arms out of position to grab onto the edge. You can also have him push off from the side and aim for you.

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Teaching Swimming Body Shape and Position: Stage 1

When fish swim, they’re graceful. They’re balanced. They’re slippery. They move efficiently, with each motion propelling them through the water. A well designed boat slices through the water, creating as little resistance and drag as possible. What does this have to do with teaching kids to swim?

Importance of Body Shape and Position in Teaching Kids to Swim

The shape and position of the body in the water make a huge difference to how well the body moves through the water. Before even considering teaching your child strokes, you have to teach him to feel his body in the water and to shape his body in the water. This is a great swimming skill to start to teach even before you get into the pool.

The First Stage of Teaching Swimming Body Shape and Position

You’re aiming for a long, balanced body position. The longer you can make your body in the water, the faster you’ll move. Kids tend to revert to a dog paddling position, with their bodies close to vertical in the water and their arms bent and close to their bodies.

Have your child lie on the ground outside the pool or at home, on his back or his stomach. Don’t forget to put a towel down to make him comfortable if you’re practicing on hard ground. Ask him how his body feels while he’s lying down. What’s the feeling in his limbs? How about in his belly? What about his head? Compare this to how it feels to sit or stand.

Practice the streamlined position until it feels natural. Have your child practice not just lifting his arms overhead but stretching them as if he’s reaching for something just beyond his fingertips. Keep the body in a streamline position, with the arms reaching forward, the arms and head in line with the torso, the chest pressing down into the water, and the legs in line with the torso. Practice it on the ground outside the pool.

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Teaching Popup Breathing: Mastery

Once your kids have mastered popup breathing, they’re well on their way to being water safe. Here are the final steps of teaching your kids this important swimming skill.

The Next Stage of Teaching Popup Breathing

Explain what you’ll be doing before you start. While you’re supporting his body with an arm under his stomach, have your child glide in torpedo position from one side of the pool to the other. Halfway across the pool, have him push down with his arms and lift his head to take a breath. Hold him as firmly as necessary while he tries it.

Work your way to having him try to pop up for a breath halfway across the pool while your arms are just grazing his belly, providing no real physical support. Then walk beside him while he takes a popup breath on his own.

The Final Stage of Teaching Popup Breathing

Have your child practice pushing off from the side and swimming across the pool to you, stopping to pop up for a breath whenever he needs one.

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Time to Play! Popup Breathing

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 game that will help you teach your kids to breathe when they’re in the pool.

Sing “Pop Goes the Weasel” and have your kids pop up on the word “Pop.” Make sure to emphasize that their arms have to push down to make them pop up. Support your kids loosely around the waist between pops, and let them sing along or just listen to you. Really belt it out. Singing in the swimming pool is almost like swimming in the shower. Be loud!