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How You Can Keep a Scary Moment in the Pool from Turning into a Big Deal

If something happens that scares your child—going underwater or breathing in water unexpectedly—how you respond will make the difference between his brushing it off and his carrying that fear with him into the future, possibly for life. How should you respond when something scary happens?

Acknowledge it.

Don’t deny that something scary, unexpected or unplanned happened. Be matter-of-fact about it. Make sure your own body language is confident and supportive. Your kids should know that while it may not have been a part of your swimming lesson plan, you can handle it. In the first few moments after an accident, your child looks to you to help him decide how to react and how to feel about it. How you respond helps your child make that decision.

Empathize.

Be sure to empathize with your child’s feelings. Acknowledge not only that it happened but also that it was scary, if that’s what your child tells you he feels. Address how you’ll keep it from happening again. Then move on.

Treat it like a boo-boo.

It’s a lot like dealing with boo-boos on dry land. “Did you fall? Does your knee hurt? I’m sorry? Do you need a bandage? How about a kiss? Next time, let’s make sure to hold on with at least one hand when you’re climbing. You ready to go again?” If you don’t make a big deal out of it, your child will be less likely to.

Of course, these tips are for minor mishaps. In the case of a real accident or emergency, always call 911 immediately.

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How to Make a New Swimming Skill Automatic

With repetition, practice, and review, your child will turn the new movement you’re teaching into something habitual and ingrained that requires very little thought. In the early stages, though, each moment of what he’s doing takes a lot of focus and attention. How do you help your kids practice new skills to make them old hat when you’re teaching them to swim?

Make it easy

It’s easiest for kids to learn when they’re fresh and their bodies and minds aren’t too tired. Depending on how long you’ve spent on getting into the pool, reviewing, playing, and teaching the new skill, you’ll probably have between one and five minutes to practice. This may not seem like much, but remember that today’s new skill is the skill you’ll be reviewing at length in your next swimming lesson. The important thing is to introduce the skill and give your child a chance to get a small taste of how it feels.

Switch it up

If your child gets frustrated, switch to a different approach to the same skill or to a different skill entirely. Look at what he’s finding difficult and demonstrate it again. Touch his body. Have him touch your body. Feeling his own ankle when it’s flexed and pointed will be helpful, but seeing and feeling your ankle when it’s flexed and pointed will give him a different perspective.

Make it clear

Acknowledge the small subtle things that are happening as your child practices. Point out how balance and buoyancy come into play, highlighting which parts of the body are more likely to sink and which parts are more likely to float. Talk about how his body moves and feels in the water. Keep it brief and to the point, just a touch and a “feel your knee?” while he’s swimming is the most attention he can spare while he’s also trying to practice moving. Save the details for later when you’re on dry land.

Keep it simple

Remember to progress from easy to difficult and from simple to complex:

  • When you’re working on floating, start with providing lots of physical support and progress to providing little or none.
  • When you’re working on a distance, start with short and work up to the width or length of the pool.
  • When you start a skill, speed doesn’t matter. Work up to being able to do it fast or at different speeds.
  • When you start a skill, refine it slowly. At first, just doing it is enough. As you practice, work on refining body position, then movement, and then timing.

Keep it up

When you’re teaching your kids to swim, today’s new skill is tomorrow’s review. Don’t expect all the learning to happen at once. It’s during review and practice that those new skills will sink in and become automatic for your kids.

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8 Surefire Steps for Giving Corrections That Don’t Lead to Tantrums When You’re Teaching Your Kids to Swim

Nobody’s perfect. You’re not going to do everything exactly right when you’re teaching your kids to swim, and they’re not going to get each skill the first time they try. The way you give feedback can make the difference between a tantrum and excited improvement. So how do you give your kids feedback that will keep them happy and help them move forward?

Keep your goal in mind.

They’re not perfect, and neither are you. Be gentle and constructive. If you find yourself getting frustrated, stop. Do something else or hop out of the pool and play a game or give each other hugs. If you’re feeling frustrated while you’re teaching your kids to swim, they’ll pick up on it, and that will make it harder for them to learn. If it’s not fun, take a break.

Be specific.

Specific praise is the most effection. The same concept applies to corrections. Be as specific as possible. Saying, “come on, you can do better” makes your child feel inadequate without giving him any help in trying to do better.

You can give feedback while your child is practicing the swimming skill you’re teaching, or you can take a break to explain, depending on how complex the idea you need to express is.

Give feedback immediately.

Give your child the feedback immediately, so that what his body is doing or has just been doing is fresh in his mind and so that he knows exactly what movement you’re talking about.

Break your feedback into steps.

Point out what is working.

  • I really like how hard you’re trying and how much attention you’re paying to what you’re doing.
  • I notice that your knees are bending a lot while you kick.
  • Your legs can push the water better if they stay straight.

Point out what isn’t working. Explain why it’s not working or isn’t the best approach. Make suggestions and ask for suggestions for how to improve. Include physical feedback. (More on physical feedback in the next post.)

  • Do you feel the air here when you kick? (At this point, you can touch your child’s foot or calf.) One way to tell when you’re keeping your legs straight is that you’ll stopping feeling the cold air there.
  • What ideas do you have about how to keep your legs straight?
  • What ideas do you have about how you’ll feel it when your legs are straight?
  • Show me how you kick with your legs straight.
  • Your legs are really staying straighter now. The changes you made really worked.

Follow up with more feedback. Use simple reminders.

After detailed feedback, you can use simple reminders as shorthand to remind your child of what you’ve already gone over together.

  • Great effort. Knees straight.

Give one correction at a time.

Be sure to give one correction at a time. A list of things to work on is too overwhelming. If you notice several things that need work, pick the one that you think will make the biggest difference to work on first. After your child has gotten comfortable with one change to what he’s doing, you can introduce the next.

Try exaggeration.

If your child is having trouble with a skill, try having him exaggerate what he’s doing wrong. For example, if he’s not straightening his arm to take a stroke, have him purposely keep his arms bent and tight against his sides, so that he can really feel the problem.

Give your kids permission to fail.

Trying to do it wrong also lightens the mood. You not only want to give your child permission to fail, you want to encourage it. When you’re teaching your kids to swim, you want to create an atmosphere of open exploration that will help your child to get a better understanding of his body’s relationship to the water. Making “doing it wrong” okay will help create this atmosphere. It will also give him the freedom to risk trying new things, because he won’t be afraid of the consequences of failure.

You can also try having him exaggerate what you’re asking him to do. Try having him keep his knees perfectly straight for some practice kicks on the side of the pool. Even though this would never happen in actual swimming, getting a body feel for the extreme can help him move in the direction of good form.

Try, try again (and take breaks!)

Remember to use a patient, nurturing, positive attitude. Learning is a process. It’s not always smooth or linear. Sometimes you need to try several approaches before you find one that works for your child or before what you’re trying to teach him really “clicks.” If you or your child starts to get frustrated, take a break or switch to practicing another skill or playing a game.