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What to Expect When You’re Teaching Elementary School Kids to Swim

Kids in elementary school are fully equipped physically and mentally to learn to swim. How can you make the most of their developmental readiness at every stage when you’re teaching them to swim?

Six years old

At six, kids’ fine and gross motor skills are well developed. They’re good at skipping, throwing, and maybe catching. At this stage, you’ll start to see swimming that resembles somewhat coordinated strokes.

Other kids their age become an important part of their lives at this stage. If you can schedule play time with other kids in the water, you’ll help motivate your kids to learn to swim. Keep lessons as distraction-free as possible, though. Try to schedule swimming lessons when there aren’t friends around.

Seven and eight years old

  • Kids this age are often very curious.
  • They’ve become good communicators.
  • They have a strong sense of fair play.
  • They can learn rules.
  • They do well with developing and practicing skills.
  • They’re learning to cope with frustration.
  • They’ll also be likely to be afraid of the water if they haven’t had experience with it before. They’ll need a lot of time and a gradual approach to get past this fear.

It’s always important to be honest and keep your promises when you’re teaching kids to swim. Kids this age are especially slow to forgive a broken commitment. If you say you’ll let them choose the game at the end of the lesson, follow through, even if it means cutting instruction time short.

9 years old and up

Kids this age are usually very coordinated and good at listening and evaluating. Their minds and bodies are primed for learning physical skills. Just make sure to keep it fun when you’re teaching them to swim, and you’ll do fine.

At this stage, kids can handle longer swimming lessons, but they’ll still get tired and cold much faster than adults. Keep lesson lengths reasonable for your kids. Be sure to watch them carefully for signs of discomfort or fatigue. Kids this age can get so wrapped up in activities that they don’t realize they’re overtired until it’s too late.

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What to Expect When You’re Teaching Preschoolers to Swim

You can start teaching your kids to swim at any age. The more experience they have in the water and the more comfortable they are in the water, the easier and more fun lessons will be for everyone. Kids in preschool are really ready to learn to swim. What can you expect at this stage?

What You Can Expect

  • Kids this age can learn to be water safe.
  • Kids this age can learn to do primitive versions of formal strokes.

When your child is three to five years old, he’ll be able to achieve water safety. Keep in mind that this is not a substitute for adult supervision. No one of any age should swim alone.

You can finally get to the point now where you could describe your child as being able to swim! It won’t necessarily be pretty. Look at how your kids climb into the sandbox, pump on the swings or run. Their facility doing things on land will give you a sense for how developed their swimming can be at this stage.

Kids this age know a lot of words. They’re aware of other kids and love to watch and be with other kids. They can run, gallop and dance. They’re really good now at riding a tricycle and might even be able to ride a bike. They’re better at throwing. They start understanding games and rules.

What You Shouldn’t Expect

  • Lots of coordination
  • A long attention span

Tips for Teaching Preschoolers to Swim

  • Although kids this age know a lot of words, you should still keep instructions simple when you’re teaching them to swim. It takes a lot of energy for them to listen, and they need energy to focus on their bodies, too.
  • Keep lessons short.
  • Offer them simple choices, but make sure you can live with whatever they choose. (“Do you want to blow bubbles by yourself or with me?” instead of “Are you ready to blow bubbles?”)
  • Use swimming with other kids as motivation to keep practicing.
  • Use games in the water to help your child practice skills without the practice feeling like work.
  • There’s a lot of developmental variety: some kids this age look graceful and coordinated and some look more awkward. They’ll all get there in the end. Be patient and respectful of where your child is now.

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What to Expect When You’re Teaching Toddlers to Swim

Toddlers experience a huge rush of physical independence very quickly. How can you use their newfound coordination when you’re teaching them to swim?

What You Can Expect

  • Independent movement in the water
  • Some understanding of water safety

What You Shouldn’t Expect

  • Fancy strokes
  • Independent water safety

How to Teach Toddlers to Swim

Kids this age are ready to be introduced to all the skills they need, but at a rudimentary level. Here are specific things to remember when you’re teaching them:

  • Focus on water safety, but don’t count on their remembering all the time.
  • Kids this age are big fans of the words “no” and “why.” Use that to your advantage.
  • Your child can follow instructions if you give them one at a time.
  • Kids this age tend to get frustrated easily. Take lots of breaks and don’t push too hard.
  • Kids this age can usually throw or kick a ball well enough to move it a little, but they won’t have real ability. They might be able to ride a tricycle, walk down stairs, run well, and stack blocks. Think of how your child does these things when you’re working on arm and leg movement.

Don’t forget that you can get step-by-step instructions for teaching kids of all ages to swim by clicking Get the Book and downloading now.

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What to Expect When You’re Teaching Infants to Swim

It’s never too soon to start thinking about water safety for your kids. What should you expect when you’re teaching your six- to eighteen-month-old to swim?

What You Can Expect

  • Developing comfort in the water
  • Some conceptual understanding of movement in the water

What You Shouldn’t Expect

  • Independent Swimming
  • Water Safety

How to Teach Infants to Swim

The most important things you can do when your child is this age:

  • Make sure the environment is safe
  • Give him plenty of experience in the water

Kids this age are too young to understand the danger of drowning, and they’re too young to coordinate their bodies well enough to truly swim. Just think about how they move on land. At the younger end of the range, they’ve just started crawling. At the older end, they’re toddling around. Their mental and physical development doesn’t give them the ability to swim at this point.

At this age—as at every age—making sure that they’re well supervised whenever they’re near or in water and that any pool is secured with an appropriate fence are the most important ways to keep them safe.

Once that’s taken care of, you can practice getting comfortable and learning to move in the water. You can progress to getting your child’s face wet, gliding, and floating. With enough practice, your kids will be able to toddle around in the pool as well as they do on land.

A Word about Infant Swimming

There are programs that work to teach kids this age to hold their breath underwater and flip onto their backs to float. Use common sense. Until they’re cognitively and physically ready to swim, this kind of training is unlikely to hurt them*, but only supervision will keep them safe.

Fall has come to the San Francisco Bay Area. Today is grey and drizzly, with the scent of fallen leaves in the air. Until spring, I’ll be posting three times a week and using the off days to drink hot cocoa and sit by the fire.

*There are risks associated with using infant swimming training, including the possibility that an infant will aspirate water. Use common sense. When in doubt, err on the side of caution.