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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 Let Your Child Drive the Lesson to Maximize What He Learns

When you’re teaching your kids to swim, it’s easy to get caught up in your own plan for the lesson, but you and your child will do better if you focus on observing and responding to your child. The lesson plan is just a starting point. The more your child drives the lesson, the more tailored it will be for exactly what he needs to learn and where he is developmentally. How do you turn your lesson plan into a child-driven swimming lesson?

Watch your kids.

Watch your child to see not only how he’s doing with the swimming skills you’re teaching but also how he’s feeling. If he looks nervous or afraid, move closer, provide more physical support, and heap on the praise for the effort he’s making. If he looks frustrated, take a break, backtrack to a skill you’ve already covered, or take a different approach to the skill you’re practicing. You know your child. When he’s frustrated, he might want more guidance, or he might want more space to try things independently.

When in doubt, help.

If you’re not sure whether your child needs more support while you’re teaching, give it to him. It’s important to make sure your child feels confident and secure. Fear and frustration make learning hard, so step in if there’s any chance his feelings are heading in that direction. Tomorrow’s post will look more at how to respond to fear.

Respond to boredom.

If he looks bored and he’s not physically challenged by what you’re practicing, congratulations! You’ve gone as far as you can with that skill for the lesson. Expand or refine the skill slightly to make it challenging again or move on to the next skill. If he looks bored and he’s still not quite getting it, switch to a game that uses the skill he’s practicing instead of straight practice.

Keep an eye on comfort.

Try to spot early signs of cold or fatigue. If your child looks cold or physically uncomfortable, it’s time to get out of the pool, dry off, sip a hot drink, and have a snack.  As he gets tired, his form will become sloppy, and that sloppy form is what your child will start to internalize and make into a habit. When you see your child’s form—at whatever level of development it is—start to deteriorate during a swimming lesson, call it quits.

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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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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.