Swimming lessons | pad patter 7.12.17

My dad taught me to swim in the sea when I was very small. My own kids all had swimming lessons in school and from us in the sea. We live close to the beach and the kids spend a lot of time there. So it was always essential that they could swim for their own safety.

 

How do you teach them to turn and float? We have a pool, I love it, it is inground, but only 3.5 ft deep all the way across, so the older kids can stand up, but since we purchased the home, we have had two more babies. I have anxiety at night imagining them drowning. (we have 6 ft pool fence that is locked unless I am outside, but I still have heavy anxiety). My 2 year old is fearless in the water, and we have her pretty well trained that she knows she cannot go into the pool fence without her puddle jumper floatie (the best floatie ever), but now our baby is crawling and he heads straight for the pool gate if you set him down outside. I would love the peace of mind knowing they both knew how to turn themselves over and float on their backs. I have looked into the survival swim lessons or the Self Rescue ones, but there are no instructors/classes in our area. The older kids started lessons at 4 and are both good swimmer, but I do not want to wait until 4 for the little ones.

 

I don't know how to swim and I am terrified of water. I didn't want Bianca to be like that, so we put her in swimming classes. She swims pretty well, but is afraid of water hitting her face when she takes a shower. Can someone explain that to me?

 

I looooved swimming as a kid. I took many lessons, even have certificates for rescue swimming and such.
We had an actual pool in our backyard (which was not regular in that time and country) and I swam every day in summer. During lunchbreak, I would come home, eat, swim and go back to school.

My poor eyesight is one of the reasons why I don't like swimming too much anymore. And when I grew up and got more aware of my body, that didn't help.

But when I was little my mom did pull me out of swimming lessons once. I couldn't swim under water far enough. And all of those lessons didn't change it. So we stopped for about half a year. When I went back I did the swimming test in two weeks and succeeded.

 

My kids have never had swimming lessons but they have grown up around water. We have a house on the river with boats and wave runners etc.....so in summer they have been exposed to the water that way and at home we have a pool and we swim about every day in summer. We have always worked with our kids on our own starting out with the swim floats. Our youngest girl ,who just turned 5, finally got the hang of swimming at the beginning of summer this year while on vacation. My husband just kept working with her in the pool and now she swims like a fish. Our youngest is also progressing very well. He is 3 and he has the same kind of arm floater that the others used. It keeps him up but he is able to put his head under water and he loves doing so. He can hold his breath and all and he is getting the hang of the motions of swimming.

 

@Teri IDK if there's a YMCA near you, but they've revamped their swim lessons. I know a big thing they do is (1) teach the child to ask an adult if they may go in the water--even if the child is sitting with you waiting for the lesson to start--and (2) how to "swim, float, swim." This is because, unfortunately as @djp332 learned (thankfully your daughter was ok!), kids accidentally end up in water even if adults are around, so the Y want to start training kids never to approach the pool/lake/beach/etc without making sure the parent (or whomever) knows. I really like that. DS started lessons a few months before they made this change. His instructor told us about it and said she'd be starting it asap. When she'd call out to let the kids know it was time for their lesson, she'd send any child back who didn't first ask their (grand)parent "May I go in the pool?" and wait for a response. Some parents are on their phones and not paying attention, so this kind of got us involved a little bit, too.

@Dalis I'm sorry you're afraid of water. There are lessons geared for adults. Do you think learning to swim would help? As for Bianca and the shower water, that made me giggle. My kids act like the running shower is some type of water monster. Chill, guys. You jump into our neighbor's pool and you guys have water gun fights in your friends' pool, so a little clean water on your face shouldn't be a big deal (or a surprise).

 

I wish, I have tried but just getting into the pool makes my heart race! Last year I was able to do aqua aerobics and that was a WOW moment, haven't tried it this year.

 

That has to be tough. But I think it's great that you didn't want Bianca to have that same fear! Doing aqua aerobics was good for you and I bet having Bianca see you try something that scares you was a great example for her!

 

I can't swim at all! We are going Kajaking next weekend and I am dreading it already.

 

Oh YEAH!

 

I know enough to get by. I seem to get ear infections/swimmer's ear so don't love to be immersed in water any more than to get wet, cool off, and lie on a raft! But yes, I agree with you that kids should learn and both my children had lessons and loved it. We have a pool so it was a necessity for us.