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Backtrack to Move Forward When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim

How can going backwards help you move forward when you’re teaching your kids to swim?

It reinforces what they’ve learned and gives them the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the swimming skill you’re working on. It also prepares them for learning the next skill without the awkwardness of not fully understanding what’s come before.

I discussed the importance of reviewing in an earlier post. Here are some steps to take to make reviewing work for you.

Set Your Expectations

Don’t expect your child to pick up where you left off at the end of the last lesson. Backtrack a bit and work up to the skills your child was working on at the end of the last lesson. If there are skills your child has already mastered, you don’t need to work on them in every lesson.

Where to Start

Start your review at the very beginning of the previous lesson’s new material and spend five to ten minutes practicing it. If your child feels really confident after the first five minutes, you can move on. If he still seems tentative, use more of your lesson on review.

Let Your Kids Riff

Try having your child experiment with doing the skill in different ways and comparing the results. Ask him to point out what he thinks works the best. Steer him away from unsafe or ineffective movements.

Play!

Ask your child how he thinks things are going. After some practice, make the skill a vehicle for play.

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Getting Your Kids into the Pool for the First Time When You’re Teaching Them to Swim

Getting into the pool can be quick and easy or it can take most of your time, depending on where you and your child are in the process. Unless getting into the pool is the new skill you’re teaching or is the recently learned skill that you’re reviewing, take just a minute or two to get into the pool together. If you’re getting into the pool together for the first time, you can use this technique to get into the pool.

Getting into the Pool

If your child does want to try getting into the pool, seat him on the edge of the pool. Keep a hand on him while you climb into the pool first. Making sure you’re stable, stand facing your child, and use both arms to transfer him from the edge of the pool into a close hug. Keep your head and your child’s head close together and at the same level to help him feel secure.

Once You’re In

Splash together, play together, and explore the feel of the water together. Don’t give in to the temptation to start a lesson. This visit is just for getting used to the water.

Getting Used to the Water

When your child is first getting used to the water, try to avoid splashing his face with water. Instead, get his face wet gently, by stroking him with your fingers. If his face does get wet, don’t wipe it off. There’s nothing wrong with getting a little wet, so don’t send a non-verbal message that says otherwise.

When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim, Leave Them Wanting More

Don’t push practice too long. Not only does it stop being fun, but also it’s physically less effective. If your child is tired, everything will feel harder and scarier.

The Most Important Thing

After safety, the most important thing to accomplish on your first visit to the pool is to have fun. You’re not just introducing your child to the water. You’re also introducing him to the style and approach you’ll take when you’re teaching him to swim, setting up his expectations for how he’ll feel about spending time in the pool with you, and setting in motion the development of feelings he’ll have toward swimming for the rest of his life. If it’s not fun, step back, adjust your expectations for yourself and your child, and try for fun again. Not only will it help your child learn, it’ll be…fun.

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The Four Things to Do before You Get into the Pool to Keep Your Swimming Lesson Safe and Streamlined

When you’re teaching your kids to swim, time in the pool is valuable. You only have fifteen or twenty minutes of water time before your kids start to get uncomfortable or lose focus, and at that point they’re done learning. Do these four things before you get into the pool to make the most of your time in the pool.

Make sure there’s a working phone nearby.

Nothing is more important than safety when you’re teaching your kids to swim. In case of emergency, you’ll dial 9-1-1 right away.  Prepare for that by making sure there’s a working phone nearby before you get into the water. Check for a dial tone. A landline is the best option because it gives emergency responders the location of the phone automatically.

Go to the bathroom.

Kids have an uncanny ability to wait until the worst possible moment to need to go to the bathroom. You’re next in line at the store with a huge basket of groceries. You’re just about to find out whether the animated hero of the movie gets out of a sticky situation. You’re thirty seconds into your swimming lesson.

It doesn’t help that being in the water tends to encourage the need to urinate. You can’t completely eliminate the possibility that your kids will interrupt your swimming lesson just when you’re starting to teach them, but making a trip to the bathroom part of your routine every time you prepare to get into the pool gives you the best chance you’re going to get for an uninterrupted lesson.

Empty mouths and blow noses.

You shouldn’t eat before swimming anyway. (Digesting requires energy, and your kids need all of their energy to swim.) You never know when your kids will find a stray Cheerio tucked into a corner of their booster seat on the way to the pool, though. Now’s the time to make sure that your kids don’t have food or chewing gum in their mouths.

Prep your post-pool equipment.

Have towels, a warm drink—even if it’s hot out—and a snack ready to go.

Taking these steps before you get into the pool when you’re teaching your kids to swim will help make the lesson go smoothly.

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Time to Play! Body Shape and Position

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 you can play on dry land that will help give your kids a feel for the best body shape and position for swimming.

A major advantage you have when you’re teaching your kids to swim is that you can try things out of the pool that help your kids learn to swim. The next time you’re at the playground, try this. Have your child hang from the bars or rings. Does his body feel long? Does it feel loooong? Have him stand on the ground reaching for a bar or ring that’s too high for him to grasp. How does it feel?

That stretched feeling, or as close to it as possible, is a good one to practice. Kids tend to scrunch their bodies up and revert to a dog paddle when they’re learning to swim, but ideally they should keep their bodies long. Having a no-pressure reference point from dry land will help them know what to aim for when you’re teaching them in the pool.