Anyone taught their DC to swim themselves?

[mommathatwearspink]

DD has been having swimming lessons at our local leisure centre for three years, she’s nearly at a stage where she can swim but progress has been slow. DS is due to start in a month or so which will mean double the cost.

I’m considering scrapping the lessons, getting us a family swim membership at a local gym that we can use as many times a week we want and teach our DC to swim ourselves.

Just wanted to get some thoughts from people who had done this please...

I did with my 2. Couldn’t afford lessons for both, just took them lots myself, and enjoyed being in water. No real attempt at coaching. Both can swim now on top and under water. Not perfect strokes or technique but enough I think to save themselves if they had to and certainly enough to enjoys pools etc on holidays. Even swimming in the sea.

I did. We did as you said, just went regularly and practised. She wouldn't win medals for form, but swims safely and school swimming lessons have improved her style.

Yes, I taught both mine. We went each week come rain or shine. They picked up swimming 'lessons' at stage 5 because they wanted to join the swim team and that's the stage where they taught technique.

Ds learned in 1-1 lessons, watching her teach him techniques for different strokes it seemed straight forward enough but very repetitive with them doing slight adjustments to suit him, you could probably get the basics from a book, but there is no way ds would have had the patience with me teaching him.

With 1-1 20 minute lessons he learned, from scratch, to swim and did his rookie lifeguard bronze award within 12 months. It didn't work out any more expensive than 3-5 years of lessons. If you can afford it I would get dd 4-5 months of 1-1 to get her swimming better, and postpone ds's lessons. Save yourself the monotony of years of group lessons.

We went too the pool and got them happy and confident in the water, and moving through it, and getting stuff off the bottom.
Then paid to teach them propper form.

My Dad did. We were fortunate that our local leisure centre, way back in the 1970s, had a lagoon type main pool with a graduated 'beach' that also had a non-slip surface. Perfect for first steps into the pool & just getting used to being in the water.

We all learnt there!

Mine have nearly always had swimming lessons and are now part of a local club but when they were younger and I was working less we were members of a nice gym and I took them 3-4 times a week and could see how much it improved their ability to manage themselves in the water.

I see people at the pool doing it themselves. You need a child with a good attention span who is prepared to believe you know what you're talking about... I don't have that type The other issue is that casual sessions can be noisy and chaotic with other children splashing around.

We go to the pool to play, not just for lessons, but mine have never had the inclination to practice outside of a lesson until recently as DS (9) is so chuffed he can now do lengths.

1:1 and fast track courses are good value for a quick boost. To be a decent swimmer, the majority will need some lessons at some point to learn technique. Probably best value once they can confidently swim themselves about 10m. I wouldn't say that I've wasted money on lessons because they got us to the pool week in week out, but DS1wasn't really ready to swim properly for a few years (dyspraxia).

Ours have lessons in a hotel pool, the instructors go in the water with them and never have more than 3 per instructor and it’s only 2 more a month than municipal lessons with 12 in the pool. Worth asking around.

Yes of course. Taught all mine and as kids we pretty much taught ourselves with the occasional grim school lesson thrown in. I thought most people did tbh.

I thought I would be able to teach mine - good swimmer, good technique myself but actually found it harder than I thought. They had lessons to get a proper foundation then used to come with me for practice. Did teach them how to dive, though !

We taught ours, taking them weekly and using a family member's pool a lot in the summer. For us it was as much about safety, as we live on the coast and also spend a lot of time at said pool! We were advised never to use arm bands etc which was hard going but could both swim when they were 3. Short bursts of compulsory lessons at school have helped brush up on technique.

DC1 started off with leisure centre swimming lessons, but they were awful as there were 12 non swimmers to one instructor and it just was too much. We moved to private lessons, which were a bit more expensive (but not significantly so) and the teachers only had 2-5 in the class, both dcs progressed quickly.

Spending a lot of time in the pool on holidays also helped, but I think my children needed the structure of lessons, even if only to get the basics.

In saying that, OH never had a swimming lesson in his life (as he boasts) and he is strong swimmer. But he was taken to the pool regularly.

I'm originally from Australia and am amazed at the parents obsession with swimming lessons amongst the parents i know. All sorts of grades, children not progressing because their backstroke kick is only 90% correct.

In Australia lessons are for the young to teach them how to be comfortable in the water, tread water, dive, and general faff about. Lessons for swimming stroke etc is only done for those who wish to pursue it as a competitive activity in the way someone would play cricket or tennis. We learnt to swim by generally playing in water with family and friends as a social activity. Culturally that's not the done thing here in my experience and that's a shame