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How to Disguise Premium Learning Time When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim

When you’re teaching your kids to swim, the last thing you want is for them to feel like the lesson is a chore. So how do you disguise the fact that what they’re participating in is a swimming lesson?

Turn It All into Play

Working with your own child in the pool, you have the luxury of goofing off without having to worry that a paying parent will think you’re shirking your teaching duties. You also have the important knowledge that playtime is premium learning time in disguise.

Make the last few minutes of your lesson free play. Let your child choose whatever game or activity he wants.

Your child will prefer some parts of the lesson to others. Maybe he loves moving his arms but hates practicing kicking. Maybe he loves to glide but hates to float. It’s easy to take the path of least resistance and avoid practicing the harder things, but it’s important to practice them. Make it more appealing by bookending the skills he doesn’t like with ones your child enjoys most. The end-of-lesson playtime is a great reward for doing the things he’d rather not do during the rest of the lesson.

Enjoy this time yourself. Teaching is tiring work that requires you to be intensely focused on your child. Take a few deep breaths, soak in some rays, and share some laughs and hugs. End every swimming lesson with play when you’re teaching your kids to swim. The payoff you both experience during the end of the lesson will add to the eagerness all of you feel to get back into the pool for your next lesson.

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The Secret Ingredient You Must Include in Every Swimming Lesson

No matter what aspect of swimming you’re teaching your kids, there’s one thing that you have to include in every lesson if you want to keep them motivated and moving forward. What is this secret ingredient?

The Secret Ingredient You Must Include in Every Swimming Lesson

It’s play. I’ve already talked about how important and underrated play is in teaching and learning. There’s more than that to consider about play.

After you’ve spent some time teaching, take a two- or three-minute break to play a game. This small break will signal that you’ve accomplished something and it will give your child a chance to relax and stretch, preventing him from overtiring one part of his body. It will also prime his mind and his mood for learning something new.

Present your kids with several suggestions of games that use the skill they’ve been practicing, and let them choose their favorite. They’ll feel like they’re taking a break and getting a treat, but really playing with the skill they’ve been practicing deepens their knowledge and understanding of the skill in ways that drills won’t.

If things get out of hand and you end up playing so long that you don’t have time to finish teaching what you’d planned for the rest of the swimming lesson, that’s cause for celebration. Your kids have been having fun, strengthening their bodies and their skills, and bonding with you. What could be better than that?