[angie7]

Has anyone had their kids take swimming lessons? Preferably those with 3 year olds?? We are moving in a month or so to a house with a lake. While I don't leave my kids unsupervised at all when they are outside, I'm worried about the freaky time when one will get out of the house and find the lake interesting...Anyways, my questions are did you find the classes useful? were they expensive? do you think you have taught them youself?

My parents have a pool and the kids have been in it but only with us holding them. If you did teach them on your own, how did you do it?

 

[Treece]

My parents did both. I forgot how to swim

: Still not too good at it? Whatever. ANyway, I was older 9-10.

My stepfather was the first to "teach" me how to swim. I would lay on his arms in the water adn he would let go. But only if I was comfy with it. I learned how to swim under the water. And how to float on my stomach. This was in a lake.

The next summer I forgot. I went off to summer camp and took lessons there. I learned how to kick off the side of the pool. I really didn't like it as much.

I personally would try to teach my children myself, from an early age (about 2 or 3) as I don't really think the lessons did any good for me. But that's just my experience at summer camp.

 

[angie7]

Thanks..I taught myself how to swim when I was 3. My parents would put me in the pool and I'd tell them to let go and I just took off, both underwater and on top. My dad always wanted me to be on the swim team in HS but I never did. I'm an excellent swimmer so maybe I could try this summer to teach them..

 

[Snuzzmom]

It's less important to teach how to "swim" than just how to not panic and survive if they fall in. Teach them to stay calm, to tread water, and how to do the (unfortunately named) Dead Man's Float, which is a face-down float that is sort of in the fetal position. You can actually survive quite a while in the water doing that, assuming the water isn't cold enough to give you hypothermia.

Teaching a dog paddle/ propelling yourself forward should be sufficient if you feel unprepared to teach an actual stroke. I think the key points are not to always swim with a buddy and DON'T PANIC if you fall in.

 

[kblackstone444]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snuzzmom It's less important to teach how to "swim" than just how to not panic and survive if they fall in. Teach them to stay calm, to tread water, and how to do the (unfortunately named) Dead Man's Float, which is a face-down float that is sort of in the fetal position. You can actually survive quite a while in the water doing that, assuming the water isn't cold enough to give you hypothermia. Teaching a dog paddle/ propelling yourself forward should be sufficient if you feel unprepared to teach an actual stroke. I think the key points are not to always swim with a buddy and DON'T PANIC if you fall in.

Very true.

 

[MamaJenese]

I agree with the PP. The most important thing for them to learn is how to float on thier back and not panic! I was a swim instructer for a long time and my DS would not let me teach him how to swim. The first thing we teach kids is how to paddle and roll to thier back and float. I put him at lessons at the YMCA and he did great.

 

[K1329]

My dd first took swimming lessons at 3. She's also taken them at 4 and will take them again this summer at 5. The fee was 60.00 for eight sessions. I have been very happy with the outcome/experience. They are fun for her - something she looks forward to. Also, they have taught her water safety and familiarized her with basic swimming techniques. They use methods to teach the children that I would not know on my own. Assuming you can find a good program, I recommend swim lessons!

 

[LittleBlessings]

My dc took swimming lessons at 3

 

[RKAI]

I love to swim, so we spend a lot of time in the water. Water safety is really important, even just in the bath. I put both my kids in Infant Survival Swimming last year and it was wonderful, there are some videos of the method on You-tube. The lessons were a little more expensive, but they really learned a lot, and I used the time to study the instructor so I can keep going this summer with my kids on our own. The way they taught the kids would not have been what I would have thought of. Living near a lake this could be good for you, it taught them how to swim but also how to not panic, get onto their backs, and wait for help instead of thrashing around. We live where is snows so the instructor at the end of the lessons will fully dress them in winter clothes and put them in the pool, to see how they do fully dressed in heavy clothes, if you want. My kids loved it and my then 3 1/2 year old got a lot out of it. http://www.infantaquatics.com

-Kori

 

[es1967]

Interesting info AAP has on their website. Has anyone read this? I was just there researching pool safety and came across this re swim lessons. My son is 2.5 and am probably taking him to swim lessons this summer but now am questioning it? Any thoughts about this?

http://aappolicy.aappublications.org...rics;105/4/868

 

[Girlprof]

I've seen that AAP thing before and frankly, I think it's bogus. What they are saying is, if you think you're going to teach your 2.5 year old to swim well enough that they can swim w/o you and you get lax in your supervision, then you are making a mistake. Well, duh. I would think kids need supervision in the water until they are much much older.

We have done swim lessons with the YMCA several times and I thought they were great. Lots of the "play" that we did had safety components. For example, pretending to be trains and going along the side of the pool hand over hand. I thought this was kind of boring until the instructor explained it could help kids understand how to get from any part of a pool wall to a place with a ladder. That made sense to me though I would never assume that our games of choo choo had made my child so safe that he needed less supervision in the water.

I've seen some kids start swimming lessons at 3 or 4 who were terrified of the water. So terrified they would hardly get in. It really seems to me like these kids would have benefited from earlier swimming lessons.

I guess I never really assumed that my young children would learn how to swim but I still found plenty of other reasons to do swimming lessons: fun, comfort in the water, great time together, and yes, some water safety info.

 

[gretelmom]

The reason we put DS in swimming at 3 instead of us teaching him was because when we tried teaching him ourselves, he didn't venture out on his own at ALL, he would cling so badly to us, and we didn't want to force him or traumatize him. We found a teacher who is all about making kids water safe, but not the crazy baby-swimming thing. He's verrry gentle, yet encouraging, and he pushes the kids a bit on their swimming boundaries to make them challenged. But there's never ANY trauma or crying. He encourages parents to be in the water with the kids as long as necessary but also encouraged us out of the water when it was time for independence. I sort of needed that.

A really good, skilled, experienced teacher will know the best ways to teach your kid how to gain the skills in a fast and safe way. But some parents do a great job at it themselves. I just know we, with our particular dc, were not going to get the job done. Maybe when he got bigger but we live in So. Cal. and needed him water safe early!

Just my personal experience here.

 

[uswim with anna]

You can do it yourself! there is a learn to swim program at www.uswim.com that teaches parents how to get kids swimming.

I take my kids to one of the swim schools that these guys run and they are by far the best I have seen. They put up the site for parents that could not get great swimming lessons.

Check out some of the videos they have on their site or on Youtube.

 

[blizzard_babe]

I used to teach swimming lessons, have coached competitive youth swimming, and was darn good at both (much better than I ever was as a competitive swimmer... I was mediocre at best

).

Here's the thing. Swimming is a skill that kids catch onto at vastly different rates. Some kids love it, are comfortable in the water from the get-go, float independently as soon as someone shows them how, and can do basic propulsion with just a few well-crafted lessons. Others... don't. It's one of those things where a good teacher can guide the process along, can be creative in getting kids to try whatever it is they're afraid of (ears in the water, floating without asssistance, etc.), and can help them out, but some kids, for various reasons (temperament, experiences or lack thereof, etc), don't take to it as quickly. They can most certainly learn to swim, no problem... but it can take time. So often it's not an issue of the kid not being physically capable, or the instructor not doing the right thing... it's that the kid's affective filter (to use some obnoxious educational jargon) is still so high when it comes to whatever aspect is being learned. The best "cure" for this is a mix of (a) time, (b) experience (more lessons if they're fun or just playtime) and (c) a lot of watching other people swim happily. I had one parent of a very anxious child who would come in an hour early and watch the advanced levels (where the kids had zero anxiety and were practicing joyfully), all the time commenting, "look, that girl in the green suit just put her face in the water!" "Oh, wow, that boy over there just jumped in and swam to the side ALL BY HIMSELF!" No comments about "you should do that," just casual conversation.

So yes. Those videos you see of six month-olds swimming independently are real and TOTALLY possible. I've taught those kids. I've also taught kids who, after a year of lessons, FINALLY put their noses in the water (voluntarily, I never forced kids... even the ones whose parents told me to). A month is a short amount of time, but starting lessons, or starting to teach them yourself (PM me if you want specific ideas, I love to geek out on swimming

) is never a bad thing. At that age and at the beginner levels, lessons are more an introduction to very basic skills (ears in the water, blowing bubbles, kicking, paddling, faces in the water, ears in the water on the back, etc...)... and to the fact that being in the water is FUN. They just set the stage for later learning, and throw in a few "survival" skills... but (see below and above) this is no guarantee and varies greatly from kid-to-kid when it comes to how quickly they are able to do stuff independently.

An added random note... Anyone who says they can "water-proof" your kid, IMO, is selling snake oil. Dangerous snake oil, because there have been cases where parents thought their kid was OK because, "They took lessons and can swim!" Small children are never, ever waterproofed. Ever. Period. I always emphasized this at the beginning of my infant lessons... "I can't make your child water-proof. If I say that I'd be opening myself up to a huge liability, and even worse, something bad could happen and I would never forgive myself."

I'm long-winded when it comes to swimming. Like I said, I like to geek out on aquatics.

 

[EdnaMarie]

Quote:

What they are saying is, if you think you're going to teach your 2.5 year old to swim well enough that they can swim w/o you and you get lax in your supervision, then you are making a mistake. Well, duh. I would think kids need supervision in the water until they are much much older. We have done swim lessons with the YMCA several times and I thought they were great. Lots of the "play" that we did had safety components.

Could have written that myself. My daughter is in her third round of parent-child "lessons" for under-threes at the Y now. She's been in "swim lessons" for about a year.

She can now float unassisted if we set her up for it and doggy paddle. Hooray.

She can also jump in by herself, which she never did before the lessons. Eeek.

Quote:

Anyone who says they can "water-proof" your kid, IMO, is selling snake oil. Dangerous snake oil, because there have been cases where parents thought their kid was OK because, "They took lessons and can swim!" Small children are never, ever waterproofed. Ever. Period. I always emphasized this at the beginning of my infant lessons... "I can't make your child water-proof. If I say that I'd be opening myself up to a huge liability, and even worse, something bad could happen and I would never forgive myself."

I am not a swim geek (I can float, and do a couple of strokes, but I'm not even a good swimmer, myself!) but that is JUST what I wanted to say.

Swim lessons really have nothing to do with your child's safety in the lake, not at his age.

Quote:

I'm worried about the freaky time when one will get out of the house and find the lake interesting...

See above. Swim lessons will do nothing do assuage that fear. If there is any merit to the lessons, they will also tell you that at the there. Sorry, hate to fear-monger, but it is the truth! So in that sense, if this is your worry, you would be better off investing your time and money in getting really good fencing and locks at the tops of your doors and good window locks.

 

[pigpokey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by es1967 Interesting info AAP has on their website. Has anyone read this? I was just there researching pool safety and came across this re swim lessons. My son is 2.5 and am probably taking him to swim lessons this summer but now am questioning it? Any thoughts about this? http://aappolicy.aappublications.org...rics;105/4/868

Here are my thoughts:
I strongly suggest the small investment of a Warm Belly Wetsuit or similar suit for all toddlers if there is any chance of limiting the length of a swimming session because the child gets cold. The longer the child stays warm, the more fun and learning takes place and the more often the child will want to go to the pool.

At 2.5 if you are interested in developing an independent swimmer you need to go frequently, and when the outdoor pools close you need to be reinforcing what he learned this summer by taking him to an indoor pool 1+ times a week or you will have spent all that money and you'll see regression.

Goggles help many children have more fun at this age.

The AAP is right in that some children under 4-5 are not ready for group swim classes and that for competitive stroke development, you are probably wasting your money if you start that before the child is about 5 in terms of coordination (not necessarily age 5 -- some kids are ready sooner but they are probably performing sports-wise at about a 5 year old level at that point). And certainly right that anything that implies lower levels of supervision of swimming toddlers will be necessary, is wrong.

That being said the earlier you get them going the nicer it is -- at least from my perspective and my kids'. It's a fun healthy activity. And while early swimming won't help them swim for Kenyon, if summer league is important in your community your kids may enjoy the summers more if they are ready to go on the team as 5 year olds (depending on personality).