Why can’t everyone swim???

[GorgeousFox]

Am interested in understanding what is stopping children from learning to swim? Is it the cost, lack of facilities, time constraints, something else?????

Great Apes can't swim in general, so it's not just humans.

My son's confidence... After a year of 1-2-1s, even his instructor didn't know where to go with him... So we have stopped for now and may pick it up again later

We have a large pre frontal cortex that makes it harder to do things instinctively, that might be partly why.
I think a lot of apes can’t swim anyway. Mammals is a very broad category. Some mammals are aquatic so it’s obvious that they can swim.

@kittycatmice the OP hasn't been rude or obnoxious at all. Just asked a question, and she already apologised in her second post for any possible misunderstanding of her intentions in her first post.

It wouldn't have been immediately obvious to me that guinea pigs can swim

Everyone is different OP. God u sound so rude and obnoxious. We all can and can't do different stuff. Why can't u be nice? I can just not on this thread?

(I don't mean that guinea pigs are aquatic, but they don't exactly look like they can swim - but they can!)

Of course in reply to the OP, seems pretty obvious that access to a pool, time, transport and cost of lessons and all kinds of other competing demands can stop a child having the opportunity. Swimming does not come easily to some and the few terms of whole class school lessons are unlikely be enough to teach the skill.

You might as well say why can't everyone drive, or ride a horse, or play an instrument. They are useful but it's pretty obvious you need both money and opportunity.

It's slow, costly, inconvenient & miserable taking young dc to the pool.

Mine are learning now - they're 9 & 12 but it will be learning enough to swim & not drown rather than being in galas & travelling up & down the country. Most people I know have dc who go to swim club every week but there's a definite luxury in having the time, energy & funds to provide that for dc

Can they? That’s amazing! Well, you learn something new every day😄

No need to pay for expensive lessons just take dc swimming pool once a week and teach them yourself done this with both off mine they are confident strong swimmers now.

My kids are close in age and the school I contacted required an adult per child in the pool 🤷🏻‍♀️

It embarrasses me that my 6 and 4yos don't swim 😳 excessive I know, but I grew up next to the beach in a warmer country.....

I've had a nightmare getting mi me to learn to swim.

First of all, I don't drive so taking kids swimming taks up quite a large part of my day. This means they don't have access to water very often.
Secondly, covid stopped swimming lessons and pools being open so even less chance than usual to use the pool.
We have also only need on one family holiday ever (for 3 days, so again, not much exposure to water)

Since restrictions ended, I have put a LOT of effort into getting swimming lessons but his has been hugely problematic. 1 huge waiting lists, 2) teachers being off sick. My eldest did manage to get into group lessons but these were not very useful. Mostly consisted of a teacher stood on the side of the pool looking disinterested while the kids bobbed around. A year later, still couldn't swim. We switched to private lessons but after 6 lessons the swimming teacher dumped us as he didn't want to teach after 6pm. (My partner and I work 9-5.30), so can't do any other time.

TLDR: expense, transport issues, lack of access to water, covid, lessons taking place at stupid times that don't align with parents working lives.

Except, as many people have noted its the access to pools in general not just lessons is a major part of the problem.

Can you not see there are so many things that makes it hard? It's great your dcs are confident swimmers. Parents might be afraid of water. There may not be a pool nearby, or there are no time. Like pp said, why can't everyone play musical instrument, or speak other languages, ski, or drive? Seriously.

So presumably you know how to swim! Lots of parents don't.

Not everyone has access to a swimming pool.

Swimming was a priority for us when we had DC - over & above any other classes/activities.
Their school also does swimming lessons every week from Yr3.
Our local pool is pretty good - both DC do lessons there each week too, & as they have lessons they get in free at the pool at any time of the week when there are family/ public swim sessions, so it only costs DH & I to swim.
Waiting lists are an issue but we have been fortunate & not had to wait long.

though i dont have young children at home any more in our town the main swimming pool has closed down and so has the council run leisure centre so there is no where in our town to go public swimming

My 5 year old can't. 2 reasons why:

Awful waiting lists for lessons.
The one place we did get her in absolutely insisted on face in the water from the off. It was like they cared about nothing else other than kids submerging their face. Daughter hated this and cried every time we went.

We have to pre-book a spot. And spots fill up with an hour. And the timings are not always convenient. It's also very expensive.

My mum taught DD how to swim on holiday when she was about 6. I really only swim on holiday now.

My dog runs into the water and carries on running until it turns into swimming. It's harder to do on 2 legs.

It's not a few pounds though, it's almost £25 at my local council run pool for one adult and two children. That's half our food shop for a week

Being unable to swim at 5 is still pretty young. She may feel ready to give it more of a chance in a year or two. I'm sure I had lessons when I was about 8 and then school lessons aged 10. Lessons now seem to start younger and younger but it sometimes feels like they make hardly any progress at great expense for the first few years.

I find it odd that unless you physically can't get to a pool parents would seemingly not consider it such an important life skill?

• Waiting lists - take them yourselves

• As I said earlier go when classes are on to watch what teachers are doing and copy them. What videos on u tube

• Booking in advance issues - I often had to sit up at midnight to get a slot for the next Saturday

• Being a working parent - me too - but see above.

• child slow to progress / not interested. Make them interested.

*look out for crash courses either a private pool or the local council pool where you do 5 days in a row. I also put child into these

It takes time and commitment. I would do an hour every Saturday for months and months. I don't care if fellow swimmers thought I was some tiger mum thinking she was training the next Olympian - i drummed into my child how important it was.

When finally got a space she progressed very quickly through the levels - it's the baby/ first time swimmer groups which have the longest wait lists. Stage 2 onwards tend to have a lot more spaces