Swimming

[Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain]

How good at swimming are you? I was brought to the pool as a young baby, had swimming lessons when older but also used to live near a sports centre with an Olympic sized pool and we were taken every weekend. We always used to love swimming whether in the sea or in a pool.

Is it a life skill?

DNephew 7 used to have lessons now uses a board (where you kick legs). Last time I took him swimming he refused to do so (I kept on saying swim goddam you!) then he found a boy his age an was playing and swimming. I forever played sharks with my brother and friends when in pool (hands just above water in shark fin shape).

I swam my first 25m at 16 and my first mile at 17. I can swim a mile in (calm) open water.

I needed an instructor in the water with me to show me how to put it all together, rather than someone standing on the side bellowing into the cacophany and flailing their limbs.

Being a non-swimmer youth was pretty rubbish. I love the options of being a strong swimmer.

Excellent. At sixteen I was training for 20+ hours a week. I absolutely LOVED my sport and it was 100% my choice. Even as an adult, with children of my own, I'm still in the pool 5-6 times a week.

It's absolutely a life-skill. However, I would never go in the sea as a child or teenager and still do not as an adult. One of the strongest swimmers I know drowned. Honestly, when I watch 'weak' swimmers in the sea it makes me incredibly queazy and nervous for them.

As a child who was taught to swim in the sea rather than a pool I think it's much easier to teach a child to swim in the sea.
You are very slightly more buoyant.
Mucking about in the shallows, with the waves, gets a child used to having fun in the water and not worrying about it getting on their face or in their eyes.
You can choose how fast you want to go in deeper - much more gradually than a pool.
There is lots of space away from other swimmers.
Sea water isn't as nasty as swimming pool water even though sea water can have all sorts in it... (personal opinion - hate the chlorine 😝).
Given all that - Weymouth Bay is where I learnt to swim!
nb. you learn about tides and dangerous currents too!

Ive never not been able to swim. Dad was RAF and we went to Aden when I was 6 weeks old and Mum put me in the water from the start.
We then went to Singapore, Hong Kong then back to Singapore so swam everyday.
I put DS in the water at 6 months old ( would have been earlier but he was prem and didnt come out of hospital till 3 months).
The same with DGD1 taught her before she was a year old. She hasnt 5aught her children to swim though. DGGC have learnt at school.
DGD2 took longer, DDIL took her to swim lessons but she wasnt keen but her Mum persisted as she insisted that she had to be able to swim, and now at 9 can swim reasonably well.

It maybe that he can swim better than that, but didn’t want to. I find your expectations a bit odd, if I took a 7 year old swimming I would expect to be playing and that would be the point. Doing laps would be dull for them and me, no need to suck the joy out of it.

I swim like a fish, have swum regularly all my life, and will still play in the water given the opportunity.

But that’s the thing. He didn’t play until there was someone else to play with. He just stood around.

Living by the sea, our kids have learned about wave shifts, dangerous areas and how to deal with inquisitive seals and dolphins (they are wild animals and can be savage!)
we spend a lot of time on different beaches and you can tell the holiday makers by the risks they take with their kids! (Not all obviously) but it’s a very common sight to see kids in inflatables in the sea whilst the parents are getting piss*d on the beach.

we spend a lot of our time keeping an eye on kids due to our worry so yes I agree that those that don’t learn water safety are most at risk.

I liked swimming. I just didn't like being told what to do, so gave up lessons at 11/12 (partly because I seemed to be stuck on the same level, as I couldn't do an underwater somersault). Throw in that I went to swimming lessons, life saving and competitive swimming all in the same week (along with other water sports and extracurricular activities), it is a wonder that I was ever dry 😂

I'd say that it is definitely a life skill (I grew up near canals and a lake), but it's just not a very exciting one to learn when you're young, and it's possibly terrifying to learn when you're older.

To anyone who thinks I’m being cruel I’m taking him to a pool with a wave machine soon and he likes the pool in central Bath where his grandparents and cousins live. I think it has fountains and play stuff there. I’d love to take him to a water park where are ones in London?

Later on in our swimming lessons they wanted us to be Olympic swimmers so we stopped that. DM was always a good swimmer though and we went every weekend and when on holiday so we just kept up the standard. Even my best friend who could swim but not hugely brilliantly would come in the pool with us when we went on holiday together. One time we went to Dublin on a big holiday, we got to either a sports centre or hotel pool and it was evening and we all just immediately went swimming.

Is it a life skill? I think so, like cycling. Your thread makes me want to dress myself in a black diving suit and go to the local pool for the first time in many years. I want a swimming costume that covers almost everything.

I'm not a strong swimmer wasn't ever taken as a child learnt as a young adult. I wish I was a stronger swimmer it's definitely important and I've been taking my kids since babies

@upinaballoon I just bought a walrus-sized Speedo version of https://www.sportsdirect.com/swimming/ladies-swimwear/boyleg-and-dresses

I think you can get them that fully cover the shoulders too

Pretty good. My dad just chucked the three of us in the pool when we were wee and took us weekly. No official lessons and we three siblings are pretty strong swimmers 40 odd yrs on

Oh and yes, swimming is an mportant life skill, it saddens me that lessons cost so much and a fair amount of kids will never feel the sheer joy of something as basic as being able to swim.

I won the European Champs a few years ago. I’m not telling the event as I’m easily googlable and I like the anonymity! Started early - 25m at 3, 1 mile at 5 and never stopped really.

I'm competent at swimming, enough to enjoy doing holiday activities like kayaking and have gone through periods of swimming for fitness. My mum can't swim and my parents never took us as a family - I just learned with the minimal leasons at state primary, and I'd go with my friends at late primary/early secondary age, though we spent a lot of time just mucking about in the water.

I'm not convinced it's a life skill for most people. My mum has never been in danger in the water, because she knows her limits (she will paddle at the beach on holiday but literally just getting feet wet). She's never going to fall into the Thames or Regent's Canal. I can't see a situation where she might drown. I think it's a shame that she never learned, but mainly for not being able to swim with grandkids, or enjoy certain holiday experiences.
For myself I've swam in the sea and in lakes on holiday and quite far out, so I could get into trouble then. But then, so can very strong swimmers. In my day to day life I'm not going to fall into any lakes etc.

I'm not a strong swimmer but I supported all of my dc to be great swimmers.

It opened up so many opportunities to them as pre-teens, teens, and young adults, they they would have missed if they weren't confident.
From first being able to go somewhere with friends and no parent at about 10, to making friends and socialising by pools on holidays as teens, to kayaking, sailing, SUP-ing, surfing, rowing, building rafts, etc through their teens, and then well paid work in 6th form and as students as lifeguards.

So I feel it is a 'life skill' for many reasons other than giving you a slightly better chance of surviving drowning. Even quite recently, as adults, 2 of them got together with friends to do a big inflatables course in a lake, just as a social thing.

I can’t remember not being able to swim. I swum competitively as a child and teenager, and for fitness as a younger adult. Now I mostly swim outside, but at least once a week, year round. I also need to do defensive swimming training for work every few years.

Both dc can swim; DS is much more of a natural than DD, but she got to her stage 5, so I can tick the box that Scouts always asks about swimming ability. She doesn’t like swimming, but she can self-rescue when she capsizes the little yachts she sails with scouts. DS and I would swim miles just for fun. Astonishingly, DH can’t swim, and has no desire to.

I can swim but I'm not that strong. I really wanted my DD to be a stronger swimmer so she's had weekly lessons since she was 18 months, first with me in the water with her. We also go swimming together for fun.

She's nearly 7 now and is not a strong swimmer for her age, despite all the instruction and time in the water. She just really struggles with coordination and confidence. She doesn't enjoy it and would happily stop tomorrow (I won't let her until she can swim well enough to be safe).

I find threads about swimming often have quite a moralising tone. Not all children are going to be good swimmers despite their parents' best efforts. My DD has many strengths and talents, but swimming is not one of them. It doesn't make her (or me) less of a person.

Children vary. I took both mine to lessons from when they were tiny. Eldest took to it easily and became a good swimmer. Younger one was hopeless. Still sank like a stone after years of lessons. It felt like flogging a dead horse but we got him to a minimal level where he’d probably survive if he fell in a lake, but realised there wasn’t much to be gained by continuing as it was just frustrating for him (and us!).

He has actually progressed naturally since then, just by mucking about in pools and the sea with friends.

I think most kids do need friends with them to have fun in a pool though. Taking your nephew to a pool on his own, just with you, won’t have been a huge amount of fun for him, sorry to say.

I love swimming but was never taught as a child and worked it out for myself. I took Advanced PADI as an adult and would find a holiday without access to a pool very odd.

My ds had lessons as a child, took a while to build his confidence, had classes up to grade 8 and now works weekends as a pool life guard. He loves swimming.

I am 73 and would love to be able to swim, can't find one to one adult lessons in my area though.

Remember that a 7-year-old had a fairly long period of his life when pools were closed because of Covid!

My DD is 8. I was really annoyed that I had just got her confident and happy in the water when the pools closed. She lost all her confidence in the meantime - so did quite a few children we know - and she still hasn't really got it back.

When I was a child we were taken to the pool pretty regularly; in summer we'd be dumped in there many weekends, and I think it's that consistency and familiarity that just lets you relax into it. I'm a very strong swimmer now, and I do think it's a good skill, but you have to be careful with a child not to do something counterproductive and put them off.

(I also think that even confident swimmers, at 7, will often prefer to mess about in the pool rather than swim!)