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Feelings: The Difference between Success and Failure

What difference do feelings make when you’re teaching your kids to swim? After all, they’re just feelings. It turns out they make all the difference. Here’s why.

The Difference between Success and Failure in a Swimming Lesson

Knowing the impact of kids’ feelings and perspectives on success and failure can make the difference between your success and failure when you’re teaching them to swim.

Feelings matter

Kids learn best when they feel safe and supported, physically and emotionally.

  • Tension in your child’s body makes it harder to learn a physical skill.
  • Emotional tension makes it harder to retain and process information.

What You Can Do

If you feel relaxed and confident and you’re having fun, it will be easier for your child to feel relaxed and confident and have fun. Create an atmosphere of fun, freedom, and exploration to help your child feel secure enough to learn.

Feeling Successful

According to a recent study of eight- to thirteen-year-old kids, kids’ opinions of what makes a good swimmer have everything to do with effort: if you’re doing your best—trying hard and practicing—you’re good. Kids care about the process more than the outcome. Defining success based on the process instead of outcome will help kids to remain engaged and feel successful. Feeling successful will make them want to keep trying.

What You Can Do

Emphasize the importance of practice for improvement. That fits how kids think about things and gives them control over their own success.

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How Teaching Something New Is Like a Movie Trailer

You go into a movie theater. The lights dim. You settle deeper into your seat. Maybe you start munching your popcorn. The first movie trailer starts, and you’re riveted. How is this like teaching your kids to swim?

How Is Teaching Kids a New Swimming Skill Like a Movie Trailer?

Is it the suspense? The dark? The popcorn? Nope. It’s the idea that you introduce a preview a new skill and let the concept sink in before you make it the focus of a lesson.

Be Patient

Many parents want to spend most of their time in the pool working on something new. It’s understandable. You want to see your kids make progress, and moving on to something new is a sure way to see your kids doing something new.

Resist the urge. Exercise patience. If your child still has a lot of room to learn more about the skill you’ve been reviewing, devote the whole lesson to review instead.

Teaching Something New Is Like a Movie Trailer

If your child is close to mastering the skill you’ve been reviewing, though, it’s time to introduce a new skill. Here’s the trick: Treat the introduction of the new skill as a preview of tomorrow’s lesson. Use it as a way to build excitement and anticipation.

Choosing What to Teach

Choose a new skill that builds on something your child has already mastered. Make sure you choose a single step to work on. For example, if you’re working on a new arm movement, don’t try to add a new leg movement at the same time. The new skill should feel mildly challenging at most. If it feels hard, provide more support or back off and practice a slightly easier version of the same skill.

Before You Introduce Something New

By the time you’re in the pool, you’ve already discussed what you’ll be doing. Give your child a brief reminder and start teaching. Remember to demonstrate what your child will be doing, let him explore, and give him praise and feedback. Take two or three minutes to have him learn the basic idea.

Keep It Simple

Once you’re in the pool, try to narrow your verbal instructions down to just a couple of words. If you need to explain something in more depth, take a break so that your child doesn’t have to divide his attention between listening to you and trying to do what you’re asking him to do.

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The Four Aspects of Learning to Swim That Make It Different from Other Learning

Muscles learn by doing. Practice is important not only because your mind needs to understand what’s happening but also because your muscles turn repeated motion into reflexive action. When you’re teaching your kids to swim, focus on these four special aspects of learning to help them make the most of their time in the water.

4 Key Aspects of What Kids Learn in the Water

Learning a physical skill, including swimming, is all about listening to your body and getting a feel for the water. There are four key aspects of what your child is learning in the water.

  • How his own body moves
  • Spatial relationships
  • How much effort is required to produce different results or movements
  • The relationship of the water to all of the other things—his body, space, and effort

If you bring these four things to your child’s attention in every lesson, you’ll speed up his learning.

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The Four Things That Contribute to How Fast Your Kids Learn to Swim

You’ll have a head start when you’re teaching your kids to swim if you understand some underlying ideas about how kids learn in general. First, consider the four things that contribute to how fast and how well your kids learn to swim.

Learning a skill has several stages. First, you have to think about it, or get the idea of what you’re learning. Next, you have to practice it until you can do it. Finally, you have to master it to the extent that you can not only do it without thinking but also adapt it to other situations. This process isn’t always smooth or sequential. Understanding each of these pieces can help you make the process effective, though.

Technique

Make sure your kids really understand what you’re teaching before they start to practice. Practicing something incorrectly is counterproductive. It pays to spend extra time on understanding how to do something right upfront, even if it means not practicing the skill. The right things done consistently and carefully are cumulative. It’s better not to practice than to drill doing the skill wrong.

Amount of practice

The more practice they get, the more quickly your kids will learn. They should practice only as long in one session as they’re able to perform the skill they’re working on correctly, as far as their physical development allows.

Consistency of practice

Frequent, short practice sessions yield better, more lasting results than infrequent marathon sessions.

Attitude

If your kids are having fun and looking forward to each lesson, they’ll learn faster and better.