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?????

Cost, after school timing, poor teaching (at the leisure centre near us one teacher smacks her hand on her head when she sees an error - the children are 4/5/6/7/8). Unless you really want your child to swim it won’t happen (I’m talking about knowing all four stokes well not doggy paddling 25 meters - although I’m not knocking that, heaven knows few of my mums generation can even do that).

For my close friend

• Think they’ll learn with school lessons
• Her and her husband never swim on holiday and don’t enjoy going
• They don’t see swimming as important, it’s no big deal to them if their children can’t swim

I also think parents feeling self conscious swimming comes into it.

My older daughter. Had lessons for 2 years prior to covid.
But then lost her lessons once covid hit.

She is very fearful of water and was really struggling to learn.
But had finally done her 10 metre and working on her 20. But she has lost all that and is still not very water confident. I've arranged as many lessons for her as I can, and she is on a waiting list.
When she is in Year 4 she will get one term of lessons in school. And I try and take her as much as I can for family swims in between. But she is not very water confident. Any time she has a few weeks where she hasnt had a swim her confidence takes a knock and she back to square 1. So we are waiting on a waiting list.

Her younger sister has started swim lessons. She has only been going for 12 weeks but is way more confident and is almost able to swim without any swim aids. She will end up a much better swimmer just because she is so confident in the water. And obviously she is having regular lessons at present.

Despite her older sister having nearly 2.5 years of lessons under her belt.

Covid destroyed swimming in my area. I can’t even get my child on a waiting list for our council lessons. They have a huge staff shortage so not only a lack of teachers but a lack of lifeguards meaning the kid areas in most council pools are closed so you are stuck with lanes.

Genuine question: are all the young people who drown in open water every summer non-swimmers or swimmers who couldn't swim as well as they thought? I'm not saying children shouldn't learn to swim, obviously it's a good idea, but maybe people who know they can't swim don't jump into lakes and reservoirs.

I don’t want to downplay the risk because obviously swimming is important, but I don’t think I know anyone that has fallen unexpectedly into a deep body of water and needed to rescue themselves? Obviously it can and does happen but I just see it as one of a large number of risks that are out there.

I take my DC swimming multiple times a week but it’s more for other reasons - we enjoy it, I’m not really a sporty person but I like swimming and DD also struggles in PE so it’s nice to show her that you can find your own form of exercise that you like .. that sort of thing. I go on my own and swim quite far too which I do for my own sanity and to keep fit. Before I joined a (too expensive) leisure centre going with my DC was a major faff. COVID restrictions meant council run leisure centres were incredibly difficult to access for almost 2 years.

I’m sure there are lots of life skills I’m not teaching my DC that many others would consider essential so I wouldn’t want to sneer about people who don’t prioritise swimming.

I think it's the cold water that does it

But yes, perhaps over confidence and lack of understanding etc

Cold water shock tends to play a big part in this it causes you to hyperventilant and thus you swallow more water.
People underestimate quarries and reservoirs the sheer depth of them makes the water very cold even on a hot day they can be about 6degrees

I grew up in the hot country that every school has a pool, from kindergarten to high school. There are still people who can't swim. Why is that?

Some are non-swimmers, some are average, some are good swimmers who go into cold water shock, or who find themselves caught in a riptide or too far out at sea to be able to swim back safely.

Swimmers are more likely to take risks - go into deeper water, swim in the sea, go wild-swimming, whereas non-swimmers would just avoid those activities or stick with very shallow, safe water.

I took my dd to lessons every week for 3 years. She just couldn't get it.
Part way through school year 2 she begged be to let her stop, cos she was seeing the year rs moving into he next group and she was still stuck in the first class.

Then years later, at school, she was placed in the lowest ability goup, fair enough, but they called the group "the bricks". She didn't see it as a joke and felt she had been declared a failure already, so point blank refused to do the lessons.

Now 20 and she still can't swim and has no intered in ever doing so.

There's an interesting stat on this page which says that 46% of people who drown per year were not intending to enter the water and so accidentally fell in. It doesn't say what percentage of them couldn't swim though.

www.cheshirefire.gov.uk/public-safety/campaigns/outdoor-safety/water-safety

And I've been ringing the local pools to get my kids on the waiting list for over 18 months.

I've only managed to get my younger one into lessons. The older one is still on a waiting list. One pool is not even adding kids onto the waiting list as it's too long. They just told me to ring back in a year.

A lady I know learnt to swim quite recently. In her case it was the Taliban that stopped her learning as a child.

Exactly

Like how to get the night bus home from Waterloo

Swimming is important to our family so it’s an activity we’ve prioritised. It’s easy to see why lots of families wouldn’t be able to afford it though. We started with baby swimming at around £17 a session and then have done council lessons at £30 a month per child. The council lessons are significantly cheaper than private often are but clearly that will be out of reach to many families.

If swimming isn’t a part of your life as a parent, it will be much less likely someone would prioritise the lessons.

Why does an OP use so many ????? on a really simple question.

My son has been on the waiting list for lessons since he was two. He's now nine and we never did get the phone call!

Did pay for some private lessons but covid put an end to that and the teacher had her own child and gave it up.

Have somehow got him swimming okay largely thanks to caravan holidays where we can go a lot over a short space of time.

My five year old hasn't had a single lesson but is now swimming okay.

To anyone teaching themselves I recommend the Speedo suit with floats in. Much better to get them into the swimming position to start proper strokes

GorgeousFox Are you aware there is a shortage of swimming instructors? That is why the waiting lists are so long

It’s another part of the polarising of society into the haves and the have-nots.

Cost, time and inclination mean it won’t be long before being able to swim to a reasonable standard will be a middle class privilege.

In the past, schools provided more swimming lessons and those who didn’t have lessons organised by parents could get to a basic standard. Now schools have no funding for anything beyond the basics, school swimming is mostly meaningless - often less than a term of very short lessons in large groups. Not enough to become competent.

Covid hasn’t helped as lots of swimming teachers and life guards didn’t return, so slots, especially weekend ones are hard to get lessons in. Parents have to be pretty dogged determined to get them and often their kids have to wait until they are older to start because of this.

Costs are rising. Heating a swimming pool in this energy crisis climate isn’t cheap. Getting shortage swim teachers and lifeguards costs more. Consequently lessons which were already out of reach for many are now more expensive and even more out if reach, and of course less prioritised than food and warmth.

The child who has had perhaps 5 years or more of weekly lessons in term-time, is likely to have had well over £1500 spent on them and that’s before things like travel, costumes and goggles or any other costs like swimming badges. Given it’s a basic skill, it’s a disgrace that the government doesn’t fund schools to provide it….don’t blame the schools, blame the government.

This year schools will be able to fund it even less. They have rising heating bills and the less than inflation pay rise to teachers is unfounded and having to come from school budgets. No doubt, swimming will be cut in many places.

Sipport teacher strikes, which contrary to popular opinion aren’t mostly about their pay, but about school funding.

I really don't like deep water! I can swim I'll paddle around on holiday etc but I would never put myself in a situation where I'm in deep water. I think people can sometimes be to over confident it water (my husband one of them) especially in the sea/open water where you can't afford to be complacent. It's like watching saving lives at sea and generally confident swimmers get into difficulty situations.

I think this thread has a disproportionate amount of SEN kids.

I grew up in the 70s where we had public service announcements about the need to learn to swim, so that has shaped my aspirations for children.

Saying that, as #4 child, I didn't get the same amount of parental energy and my swimming lessons were at school. I did learn to swim in that environment and got my Scottish Swimmer Award, etc. I am not an elegant swimmer - breast stroke and don't get my hair wet.

DH is a good swimmer - can do lengths and lengths without getting tired. He was a camp counsellor as a teenager and got his bronze medallion.

We have not been great with our children. The eldest did toddler lessons, and then a bit at young school age. We moved to the USA where we were pool club members. During these four years, the children had swimming lessons every day for eight weeks each summer. The eldest two became pretty good swimmers.

When we returned to the UK, we didn't do much swimming, until just before we were due to do an activity holiday in the USA, so we enrolled our girls in council lessons. They then did intensive lessons for two weeks in the USA. They all feel they can swim, although they don't visit the pool much. DD5 lives by the seaside and swims in the sea.

I will put my hands up and say that a lot of middle-class parents don't do swimming lessons because they CBA or can't get organised or simply don't prioritise.

I am now a foster carer and have two children who arrived with no experience of swimming. I take the younger one to lessons once a week (and wonder how I managed to get into this situation) and she loves it. She went from Level 1 to Level 2 within 3 weeks. The elder one is 15, so we are waiting for his birthday so he can join adult classes.

Unless you have SEN children, or are on the breadline, swimming lessons are a case of how you make priorities.

That's kind of my point. If you can't swim you wouldn't consider jumping in. Falling in accidentally is fairly unlikely.

Actually a surprising percentage of drownings happen to people who have accidently fallen in. Runners and walkers are the group who have the highest number of drownings at over 25% of all fatalities year on year.