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Teaching Your Kids to Blow Bubbles: Stage 1

You won’t see a 200-meter bubble-blowing event in the next Olympics. Nonetheless, learning to blow bubbles is an important swimming skill. It’s a stepping stone to learning breath control, which your child will use whenever he’s swimming for the rest of his life. What’s so important about blowing bubbles, and how can you teach your kids to do it?

Teaching Your Kids to Blow Bubbles: A Swimming Lesson?

Blowing bubbles teaches your child to be comfortable putting and keeping his face in the water. It teaches him to take deep breaths in and to control letting his breath out. It encourages him to play with holding his breath. All of these things are integral elements of breathing while swimming.

A Swimming Lesson for Dry Land

You can practice blowing bubbles without getting into the water. Blow on your child’s hand. Have him blow on his own hand. This practice will help him to get the feel of blowing.  So will blowing bubbles with soapy water and a bubble wand. You can also practice with balloons. Always supervise young children with balloons, because balloons are a choking hazard.

You can practice blowing bubbles through a straw into water in a glass. Then, you can practice blowing bubbles directly in the water, in the tub or in a large bowl or pot of water. Remember to supervise your child even when you’re using these small amounts of water.

If your child is nervous about putting his face in the water, dip your hand into the water and stroke his face with your wet hand. Then encourage him to put just his lips into a saucer of water. Move from there to slightly more water in a bowl. From there, you can encourage him to put his lips into the water in a bathtub.

Do Hold Your Breath

The intake of breath that you need to start blowing bubbles is a step toward holding your breath. Blowing into a young child’s face causes him to hold his breath for a moment. This can also help you teach your child the feeling of holding his breath.

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Time to Play! Getting out of the Pool

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 is especially true of swimming skills that are essential and that, for safety reasons, have to be practiced enough for them to become automatic. Try these games to help your kids practice getting out of the pool. They won’t even realize they’re practicing.

Try combining imagination games with things your kids know how to do on dry land to make it fun. Have your child pretend to be a rock climber or a mountain climber. How about a knight or a princess climbing up or down a tower? How about an acrobat?

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Teaching Your Kids to Get out of the Pool

Your kids need to know how to get out of the pool safely. Even when they’re not yet strong swimmers, this one skill can help to save your kids’ lives. Don’t put off teaching them this essential swimming skill.

Teaching Your Kids to Get out of the Pool

Your kids have to know how to hold onto the edge of the pool and climb out, either directly from anywhere on the wall or by moving along the wall to the pool’s stairs or ladder. Most kids learn to do this quickly, but you’ll want to practice in every swimming lesson until it becomes an automatic part of what they do in the pool.

Stage 1

In the first swimming lesson addressing this skill, you’re going to teach your child to hold on to the edge of the pool and climb out. The first stage of this skill is learning to hold onto the wall and move.

While you hold your child by the waist, have him hold onto the edge with both hands. Keep a firm grip, but reduce the amount of support you’re providing so that your child’s body is supported by the water. Have him practice moving along the wall by pulling himself with his hands.

Stage 2

Stand next to your child while he holds onto the edge of the pool with both hands. Keep a gentle touch on his back so that he knows that you’re there if he needs you. Move with him as he pulls himself with his hands to the ladder or stairs. Hold his waist or support his back as he climbs out.

Mastery

Stand back from your child while he holds onto the wall and moves himself. Stay near him but out of reach, and let him climb the ladder or stairs to get out of the pool by himself.

Practicing this skill should be an important part of every swimming lesson until your kids can accomplish it effortlessly. Your kids need to be comfortable enough with this skill that they can get out of the pool without having to think about it, even in an emergency situation or when they’re panicked. That means lots of practice to move this swimming skill from the conscious mind to automatic muscle memory.

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Teaching Kids to Feel the Water: Mastery

At each stage of the learning process and for each swimming skill you teach, devote some time specifically to feeling the water and its interaction with the body. When he’s learned to put his head underwater, to do the streamline position, and to kick, have your child experiment and explore.

What happens if you push off from the side with your arms or legs? What happens if you move your arms backwards? Forwards? Up or down? This experimentation is critical, because these things are all different than they are on dry land. Moving your arms backwards propels you forward in the water. Moving your arms down propels you up. Starting to understand this will give your child confidence and control in the water.

Have your child solve problems. How can you go backwards in the water? How can you go forward? Which movements and positions move you with the least effort? Which movements and positions move you with the least splash? Help your child learn to push back to go forward and down to go up.

Use play. Practice moving through the water like a fish or a ninja, disturbing the water as little as possible. How big a splash can you make for fun? How do you do it? Practice sitting on the steps and hitting the water with the flat, broad parts of your body. Okay, now how small a splash can you make? Can you slice your hand into the water without seeing any ripples at all? Practice no-ripple swimming. You’re learning to sneak up on Mom or Dad in the water, so that you can pounce on them.

Kids will discover these things on their own by playing in the water, but you can speed up the process by specifically guiding your child.