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Swimming Skills: What to Teach When

When you’re teaching your kids to swim, you need to start with the simple and work toward the complex. How do you break down the complex act of swimming into simple parts that build on each other?

Simple. Help your child to master the skills in this order. Each of the following skills provides a basis for the skills that follow it. Working through the skills in this order will allow your child to feel confident and achieve competence at each stage of the learning process. Starting with the next post, I’ll provide detailed how-to’s for teaching each skill.

Teach Swimming Skills in This Order

  • Getting into the pool
  • Feeling the water
  • Holding onto the wall and climbing out
  • Blowing bubbles
  • Putting his head under water
  • Kicking
  • Gliding in streamline or torpedo position
  • Popup breathing
  • Body shape and position
  • Treading water
  • Moving underwater
  • Back float
  • Rudimentary crawl and backstroke
  • Turning his head to breathe
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Time to Play! Kicking

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. Kicking is a critical swimming skill. Although it doesn’t provide much power, it’s important for stability. When you’re teaching your kids to kick, you can get a leg up by playing this game on land.

Have your child sit in a chair and hold onto the edge with his hands. Have him extend his legs and see how fast he can kick. How slow. How straight he can keep his legs. Are his ankles flexible? Is he flipping his feet like he’s trying to flick his shoes off?

Now try it in the water.

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9 Tips for Being Attuned to Your Kids When You’re Teaching Them to Swim

When you’re teaching your kids to swim, the most effective lessons will be the ones driven by their needs and readiness. Here are nine tips for being attuned to your kids and their needs when you’re teaching them to swim.

Tips for Staying Tuned into Your Kids in a Swimming Lesson

1.   Do check in frequently to see how your child feels.

2.   Do help your child reframe nervousness about the swimming lesson as excitement.

3.   Do watch your child practice swimming skills and respond to his needs.

4.   Do observe your child for signs of fatigue or cold.

5.   Do stop the swimming lesson if your child gets tired or cold.

6.   Do acknowledge it, empathize, and move on, if something scary—like swallowing water—happens.

7.   Do switch to a different approach or to a different swimming skill if your child gets frustrated.

8.   Do be aware of when your child needs you to give more support when you’re teaching or back off and let him try things independently.

9.   Do help, if you’re not sure whether your child needs help.

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Top 22 Tips for Fine-Tuning Your Swimming Teaching Style

When you’re teaching your kids to swim, how you teach is as important as what you teach. Use these 22 tips to help make your teaching style more effective and more fun for everyone.

22 Tips for a Fun, Effective Teaching Style

1.  Do tell your child what swimming skill you’ll be learning that day before you get into the pool.

2.  Do start easy and build on the swimming skills your child has already mastered.

3.  Do teach swimming skills in small pieces that can be combined.

4.  Do teach one swimming skill at a time.

5.  Do demonstrate.

6.  Do give simple, one- or two-word instructions.

7.  Do avoid yes/no questions.

8.  Do ask open-ended questions.

9.  Do repeat, practice, and review to turn movement into habit.

10.  Do acknowledge the small subtle things that are happening to your child’s body when he’s working on a swimming skill.

11.  Do take time during the swimming lesson to point out the physical sensations.

12.  Do praise your child’s efforts, not just his accomplishments.

13.  Do be specific in your praise.

14.  Do give positive, specific, constructive, immediate feedback.

15.  Do define success based on process instead of outcome.

16.  Do encourage your child to try things he initiates (as long as you’re there to keep him safe).

17.  Do use lots of different ways of explaining or showing the swimming skill you’re teaching.

18.  Do use all the senses to teach each swimming skill.

19.  Do touch the part of your child’s body that you want him to focus on.

20. Do use your hands to help adjust your child’s body gently without forcing him.

21. Do relate the swimming skill you’re trying to teach to something your child already knows how to do, like dig a hole or pedal a bike.

22. Do use imagination, games, and visualization to make repetition and swimming practice fun.