Please help me teach my 6yo to swim

[Lotusplanes]

Just that really. I'm in despair over DS's (6, Y2) swimming abilities. He's had lessons for over a year now and has made exactly 0 progress. All the other kids he started lessons with have moved to the next group and he is still in a class with tiny 4 and 5 year olds, all of whom are now better than he is. He doesn't go at school but aside from his lessons I go with him myself at least once a week. He likes splashing about in the water but he cannot swim - like, at all. He cannot keep his bum up and his legs sink, and the main reason for this is the fact he point blank refuses to put his face in the water - he holds his head up so high it makes the rest of him sink. He simply will not do it. He won't do it for bribery, as part of a competition, with peers, anything. He has a real thing about his ears and his nose in the water, pretty sure it is a sensory thing but nothing I do is helping. He will not even put his nose in to blow bubbles. We have tried swimming both with floating aids and without.

What can I do? What techniques can I try? I don't need him to be an amazing swimmer but I do need him to be able to keep himself afloat and be able to put his head under! We did a weeks holiday recently where he was in the pool every day and it made no difference.

Mine was like this. Point blank refused to put his face in, it went on for a good few years.

What worked in the end was a nose clip because he was so afraid of water going up his nose. Also the first time he put his face fully in was in the bath.

Once he realised that there was nothing to be afraid of, he progressed very quickly. Then the swimming teacher insisted that we get rid of the nose clip. I was very reluctant as I though he was going to go backwards but to my amazement he did it and has just got better and better since then. He still holds his nose to jump in and he's still scared to breathe out through his nose underwater but it'll come in time.

My main advice is to try not to get upset/stressed with him. This can be very hard! There were times that I told mine off as I was so frustrated with him, but it did no good whatsoever and just reinforced his fears.

Can he actually explain why he doesn't want to do it?

Loads of people swim breastroke and never dunk their heads. Can’t he learn that rather than front crawl? Even being able to doggy paddle would save his life in an emergency.

His fear is specifically that he thinks getting water in his nose and ears will hurt.

He has an extremely low pain threshold. Hysteria at the smallest graze or bump.

He keeps his head too high to keep himself afloat, his legs just sink. If anyone has a magic technique for helping him float without putting his face close to the water I am all ears!!!

if he could get used to putting his face in with a mask and snorkel, then progress to goggles, that might help.

even if you get the snorkel and practice in the bath at home?

I found this video helpful.
I never learnt to put my face in the water and I can only really do a slow breaststroke. I didn't want my son to be the same

Not sure if that link will work but it's called 'swimtofly' on YouTube

The people swimming breaststroke almost certainly learned front crawl first, and have since decided to keep their head out. You can’t swim properly while being scared of going under

Son also has goggles which help.

I hadn't thought of this, this could be worth a try.

He has a very good pair of goggles.

My daughter has glue ear and a fitted pair of earplugs as she can’t get water in her ear. Nothing ever gets in.

There are swimming goggles that cover more of their face. This could be worth a try.

Having said that, DD has got to the point where she will put her face in the water but it's made no difference to her extremely slow progress in lessons. We're taking a break until September now.

Can I ask where you got these from?

Have you been swimming with a friend of his that likes swimming? Mine hated it until he saw his friend doing it, might be worth a go?

Has he tried playing with a snorkel in the bath?

No water up the nose as the mask covers it, and then perhaps pair with ear plugs?

General info about swimming (Sorry if you know this already but although it sounds obvious not everyone knows this and both are important for good swimming technique - which also = confidence):

1. Arm position & head. Not having his head in the water will aways be a problem because you swim most efficiently when streamlined. Part of this is having your body weight balanced- in turn this means (if you are swimming crawl for example) you should always have one arm stretched out straight in front of you at every point in your swimming cycle. If you don't then you are "windmilling" your arms which means you won't have enough weight forward to balance your legs. So you should basically not start to pull your outstretched arm back into the water until the other arm is virtually level with it. Once he gets over his head in the water thing, there are drills you can do to master this, like touching one hand before pulling the other. But it will always be hugely harder to swim if you can't/not willing to put your head in the water. If you think about it as your body being on a set of old fashioned balance weighing scales (the ones with a centred pivoted around the middle) - your legs are heavy, if they are the only thing in the scales, they (And you) will tip down bringing you vertical. If you add in your arms on the other side, you'll tip more up towards the horizontal but your head is heavier still. put that in the water (on the other side of the scales to your legs) and you start to have something more balanced. The same principle applies to breast stroke swimming any distance efficiently.
2. Breathing - a big part of swimming confidently is being able to breath properly - that means relaxed bilateral breathing that you are in control of. Again this takes time to master. When he gets better, a drill that can be useful to get learners to understand they don't have to hurry, is to get them to swim in front crawl and as they turn to the side to take a breath say something out loud - anything fun they like will do - name of a favourite tv programme, silly words or phrases - anything at all. It teaches you that you don't have to do a huge hurried violent inhale at high pace.

Tips for him:

1. If he doesn't have them already get him some good swimming goggles and ensure they are adjusted properly and fitted before he gets into the water so he has a good seal and they won't leak. You don't want those silly ones that just fit in the eye sockets that you get in the swimming pool shop! Proper ones that cover the eyes and seal them. I would recommend Aquasphere (for adults - I use this brand for triathlons and they are brilliant) helpfully they do a learn to swim range for children:

uk.aquasphereswim.com/en/swim-goggles/learn-to-swim

2.I agree with the suggestion of a few 1/1 swimming lessons but you may need to shop around to get the right teacher.

3.Try various drills to get him used to putting his face in the water. For example, go as deep as you can but where he can still stand solidly - so probably so his shoulders just out of the water or there abouts - get him to hold a float straight out in front of him and practice bilateral breathing - you could combine this with saying something. Face into water, turn to right side, say something breath in, face into water turn to left side, say something breath in. If you can get him to try blowing out under water all to the good but if not persist with what he can manage and take it slowly.

4.You could try a snorkle if your pool will allow it if he really really won't put his face in the water but you need to be careful with this as you don't want him getting to a point where he is reliant on it so this maybe a bad idea. For this reason I would 100% avoid earplugs and nose clips at this stage - if you want him to learn for safety neither of these things will be accessible in an emergency and getting reliant on a nose clip particularly is a bad scene. Goggles are in different class as they can actively help you progress by allowing familiarity in the water in a way that does not affect your breathing.

5.Try to make it fun to get him to get used to being in the water. Start very shallow and get him (wearing his goggles) to retrieve dive toys that he can just bend down to get while standing. Maybe if you have ability try bribery! Like 20p for every retrieval or £1 or something. Over time, again very very very slowly, move a bit deeper so he has to stretch down.

www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/kids/toys-activities/best-dive-sticks-children-a8746446.html

Can you teach him to float on his back, and progress to swimming backstroke or 'sculling' on his back?

At least then you'd know he could keep himself afloat if he had to, and it may give him the confidence to turn over at some point

My oldest didn't like getting his face in the water. Did much better once he started showering and not having a bath. He got more comfortable having his face in the shower water.
Still didn't take to it like his brother but did become a competent swimmer.
Just keep going, Ds wanted to play with his friends in the pool so made himself get better as he got older.

Done this loads and loads - holiday was with all his cousins who adore swimming. Made not a jot of difference!

Thank you for this great post.

Sadly we've tried this and it hasn't helped as he won't have his ears in the water.

Honestly i have to clue. My youngest is now 10 and if he falls in to deep water will probably drown. He has had lots and lots of lessons from being tiny from the ones where he clung like a limpet to the wonderful instructor who carried him in her arms through the whole lesson to help him feel safe through to small group work.

He can now swim a decent front crawl and do breast stroke under water. He cannot however breathe with front crawl and still needs to stop and put legs down to take a breath and carry on so his beautiful vessel is for the width of the pool/one breath only. He can't do breast stroke on the surface of the water or swim at all head out of the water.

He refuses point blank to go on his back and can't star float on his back. You know, that life saving skill.

He will not jump on. Or slide in. Or do anything other than steps.

He loves playing in pools but is still petrified of going out of his depth and just won't do it.

Fun when his siblings and parents enjoy water sports!

Just throw him in at the deep end.

JK obviously. But I'd be tempted. This kind of thing irritates the shit out of me (my issue I know).
Try a different teacher?

My DS was like this at 5/6. He was having 1:1 lessons with a lovely young lady in a hotel pool. She tried everything to get him to put his face in the water. Leaving toys on the bottom step for him to pick up. I swear his arms grew 2 inches in those lessons as he collected the toy with his head above the water! In the end we stopped the lessons for a year and just took him to the pool ourselves for fun sessions. Ff 12 months and we tried small group lessons at the local pool. He did grasp the technique and quickly progressed to be a very competent swimmer.
I remember one of the things his teacher told us to try in the bath was to blow raspberries under the water so he had to put part of his face in but not all of it.

I have always managed to swim adequately without putting my face in the water but I know DH couldn't do it - his legs used to sink too. I think I read once that male and female buoyancy are different.

It annoys me too but this would traumatise him. We've been through a few teachers now. He's just too frightened it will hurt. Why I don't know.