When to stop swimming lessons?

[ThomasRichard]

DS is 9 and wants to stop going to swimming lessons. He’s a decent enough swimmer - ASA level 5 and can do a few lengths of a 25m pool without taking a break - but his technique could use some work.

I swam at club level for years so don’t really know what’s reasonable to expect. He’s suggested he stops the lessons and keeps up practice by swimming in the lanes while DD has her lesson. I just want him to be able to enjoy water sports (don’t be rude!) and to get himself out of trouble if he falls in.

Any experience?

Let him give up the lessons. If he’s competent and could survive a fall into deep water, it’s pointless having him continue something he’s not enjoying.

A few lengths is a good start. How are his other skills such as treading water.
Technique is useful for making swimming more efficient and less tiring.

Maybe occasional private/ booster lessons in the holidays to work on the technique if he's genuinely up for some self practice.

Yes he can tread water for 2 minutes, swim in his pyjamas and jump in safely. He did diving for a while and is comfortable in deep water. He swims in the sea on holiday and while he’s always in arm’s reach he’s never needed me to rescue him.

If he's not interested don't continue. it sounds like he can swim well enough.

We sail as a family so I insisted that my kids go all the way to pre club swimming as they need the strength but for normal water competence I think a few lengths confidently is fine.

I think the main issues with him stopping are that it’s incredibly difficult to get back into swimming lessons as there’s a huge waiting list and I’m just a bit scared

I'm a swimming teacher, some quit when they are water confident and capable of swimming safety if there were to get themselves into a bit of dangerous situation, not everyone wants to learn all the different strokes and that's completely fine. I have a 10 year old almost 11 his a fairly good swimmer can swim quite far on his front although his technique could be refined hes not interested in swimming of learning different strokes.

Although if hes swimming 25 metres swim England standard ( ASA) he should be in Stage 6.

The criteria for stage 5 is

1. Perform a flat stationary scull on back

2.Perform a feat first sculling action for 5 metres in a flat position on the back 3.Perforn a sculling sequence with a partner for 30-45 seconds to include rotation

1. Treat water for 30 seconds

5.Perfom three shaped jumps into deep water 6Push and glide 10 metres backstroke 7.push and glide 10 metres front crawl

1. Push and glide 10 metres breaststroke

9.push and glide 10 metres butterfly 10 Handstand and hold for Minimum for 3 seconds 11. Perform a forward somersault 12 demonstrate an action for help.

If he can do all that then he should have been move up to stage 6, he might be wanting to quit because hes bored and frustrated.

I wouldn't let him give up till he is in stage 7 as a minimum personally. Dd7 is in stage 5 and as you say can swim a few lengths but isn't a strong swimmer imo.

Some swim schools add to their standards before they move up a level to space it out a bit. Certainly our stage 6 is swimming lengths the whole session so would need to be able to do more than 10m to move into it!!

I'm wondering about my daughter quitting but she joined the early levels of swim club and I'm wondering if I wanted too much from her. She swims lengths and most strokes are lovely, but she hasn't got the front crawl breathing quite right and I kind of wanted her to master that before moving on. She's actually a fab little swimmer for her age but like above as shes I linger enjoying it I don't want to make her.
2 coaches to 5 kids for an hour though... I dont want to pass that up yet!

Sorry, he’s completed stage 5 and is in stage 6 quite a while ago You’re right though, he doesn’t need to know how to swim perfect butterfly and if he’s not interested then making him keep up with lessons could do more harm than good.

Let him give up. When my DS was that age, despite being a very capable swimmer to my untrained eye, it was taking ages for him to progress from the level he was stuck at. Eventually I asked the instructor the reason and was told he hadn’t quite mastered butterfly.

We quit the following week and he swims like a fish.

I just wanted him to be a confident swimmer, able enough to stand a good chance of surviving if he fell in and to enjoy the water. Spent an absolute fortune on lessons and would have spent even more if I’d been mug enough to continue.

When you described him I thought straight away he didn't seem like a stage 5. We run a different staging programme at our swim school but even so we would move someone up like that straight away. Hows he getting on with his stage 6, do you think hes progressing? Sometimes it could be having a different teacher not necessarily dropping the lessons or looking at what he maybe struggling with or what hes working towards before just dropping it all together. I would have a chat with his swimming teacher first.

My child carried on swimming lesson until reached level 8-10 and then I enrolled him at swimming club. He now swims in galas and is a competent swimmer of all four strokes. I would encourage child to carry on until they can swim all four stokes competently for 100 metres each stroke. It is good exercise for them. If a child stop at level 5 they will be unlikely to progress and learn better stroke technique on their own.

Do they not have swimming lessons at school? Mine has just started them at school weekly so I've stopped the afterschool ones.

Mine are long beyond that - but I do remember DC1 giving up lessons once I decided he was competent and confident enough to enjoy being in the water, going in the deep end, diving off inflatables, able to swim a few lengths without stopping, etc. This was my main aim for the DC, as I was such a crap swimmer that I was always stuck in the shallow end with arm-bands at swimming parties, while my friends were on water flumes etc. It was miserable.

DC2 went on to do competitive swimming, so I kept up her lessons/training until the point where she was supposed to be there at 5AM four days a week or some such. She now just swims lots of lengths for pleasure.

I would encourage child to carry on until they can swim all four stokes competently for 100 metres each stroke.

Why?

Fair enough if they really enjoy it and want to progress and its a main source of exercise. But if he can basically swim and doesn't want to carry on then I wouldn't bother.

My DD is 7 and, despite having forked out years of swimming lessons, still can't really swim because she is still so unconfident in water - I long for the day she can swim well enough to be safe in water and we can say goodbye to swimming lessons! There will be no club swimming here!

We stopped when it became about mastering strokes. If you’ve got a child who is keen to swim competitively then it’s worth carrying on, but mine had other hobbies she wanted to pursue and doing swimming along with them meant she never got an evening to herself.

Yes he’s had lessons at school this year too but they’re coming to an end. That’s another worry caringcarer: if he stops now, will he regret not learning better technique when he’s older?

Snappedandfarted2019 () he likes being at swimming lessons because he’s got a friend from school there but he’s not particularly keen on the lessons themselves. I think I’ll ask his teacher how he’s getting on and where he’d need to improve to move up and then make a decision.

I let mine stop after they got into stage 6. Some carried on some quit. For me the point of swimming lessons was to teach them to swim and all I was interested in was front crawl. As long as they could swim that well and with stamina I didn't care about the other strokes. In fact I think butterfly in a pointless waste of time.

Why don’t you take him and his friend swimming for fun. If they’re both at a similar stage they’ll have fun and improve as well.

Perfecting strokes is a pointless exercise unless they enjoy the lessons and/or want to - stressing the want to - swim competitively.

I'm like caring - in that I want them to be good enough to return to lane swimming as an adult for fitness if they wished, or take up life guarding or watersports and be more than just "ok for 25m".

However after sinking money into it for a couple of years I kind of wanted a certain level before she left!!

I am a terrible swimmer as my mum never continued my lessons once I learnt to swim 10 metres. As a result I was keen for DC to complete all swim levels. DC wanted to give up once they reached stage 7 but I asked them to give stage 8-10 a go (or replace swimming with another form of exercise) and they now really love it and are an excellent swimmer.

IMO stage 5 is good but all the stage 5 swimmers I've seen are not necessarily strong swimmers and would only be able to swim/tread water in the ocean for maybe 5 minutes.

caringcarer I don't think anybody needs to be able to swim 100 fly.

It always amazes me the difference between swimming schools on here! My DS is working towards ASA level 4 and yet within his class he is swimming 25m butterfly and 100m of all the other strokes, he’s collected a brick from the deep end and can tread water

I said my oldest had to finish stage 6 before she stopped. To keep it fair I made ds carry on to the same level. He must have been in that stage for ever! He just didn’t move up and we were both getting really frustrated. Finally he finished and now I only have the weekly argument with dd2, who I reckon will need lessons for another year or so until she finishes level 6. I swear I have paid thousands of pounds to swimming lessons over the years!

Running- weve tried a few schools here and it really does vary between them!!!