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Time to Play! Floating

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. You can turn learning to float on his back, a skill that tends to be stressful for kids to practice, into fun. Here’s how.

Instead of having your kids concentrate on floating the right way all the time, you can help them have fun with it by making doing it wrong a game. Have your kids bend at the waist and grab their toes. How fast do they sink? Doing the opposite of what they need to do to float will help your kids get a great feel for what not to do, and that will help them when they’re practicing doing it for real. As long as you’re there to catch them, this game will give your kids the confidence to explore different scenarios and sensations, and that will help them learn faster and more effectively.

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Time to Play! Moving Underwater

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. Use this classic game to help your kids learn to move underwater.

Put coins or sinking toys on the bottom of the pool and have your child pick them up. Your kids get to keep whatever they pick up.

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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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Time to Play! Treading Water

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. Treading water can be tiring and boring. Once your kids have got the idea, they’ll still need to practice. Here’s a simple game that turns treading water into fun for everyone.

When your kids are solid water-treaders, play catch while you’re all treading water. Don’t try this until they’re comfortable treading water for a minute or two without distraction. Take breaks whenever somebody gets tired or has a giggle fit.

This game is simple, but it’s challenging. It forces your kids (and you) to do the work with their legs. It distracts them from the boring part, because they’ll have to focus on the ball. It challenges you to make the game work: you need to throw the ball right to them, and you need to catch the ball no matter how far away from you they throw it. Not only is playing catch while treading water a great way for your kids to learn to be comfortable with the skill, but it’s also guaranteed to give you newfound appreciation for water polo players.