Is there much point to a 6-year-old having swimming lessons?

[Thesnailonthewhale]

My 6-year-old can swim maybe around 8 to 10. M in a sort of recognised stroke. She's currently in stage 3 lessons . I'm just thinking of taking an eight of lessons because she isn't getting that much from them and spending a lot of time standing around, waiting for her turn to go up and down the pool etc. we swim at least one other time apart from the lessons and would replace the swimming lesson with a family swim where I'd make her practise. We do the practise anyway on our weekend swim. So should be practising at least twice a week, about 10 to 15 minutes each time, which is probably more that she gets out of the 25-minute lesson anyway.

Am I missing something?

I don't need her to be able to do butterfly or breaststroke or anything. Just be able to swim across the pool and then naturally grow her stamina as she gets older. She's a million % confident in the water but also safe. she'll dive down to the bottom of the two to three metre pool to collect weights etc.

I'm just thinking I could save myself 40 odd pound a month

Stage 3 is basically a non-swimmer. However, I also think it is one of the worst stages for leisure centre lessons and we moved our youngest to a different provider at that point as the lessons were shit.

It’s often the stage they head into the big pool from a teaching pool and are still pretty little. I moved my 5 year old as there were 10 kids in a class and they spent more time on the side as the teacher would have them go 1:1. It wouldn’t have been safe for that many small kids to be swimming together but I really wasn’t happy with how much she was learning at all.

If she is spending a lot of time standing around and not getting a lot out of it then it sounds like you need to change her swimming lessons rather than stop her lessons altogether. My DD goes to a swim school which is £52 a month and the maximum number in her class is 6 so all the kids in her class get a decent amount of attention and support. They are all in the water at the same time learning too

I hear you OP. I took my 2 out for similar reasons, they were in stages 2 & 3 and just weren’t progressing at all. Maybe we just had a shit swim school. We go at the weekends and have ‘fun swims.’

I would change her lessons. I started mine in one where they each take turns getting in the water and doing a width. Such slow improvement. Now in a class where they are in the water the whole time and they all do it at the same time so getting a lot more practise in.

I wanted my kids to have a good grip of all strokes and be able to swim confidently for a while. He's quitting soon but can do 30 mins solid of lengths now in all strokes apart from maybe butterfly and has done survival skills a few times too.

It's up to you when you want to withdraw your kid but I am not a good swimmer and always wished I mastered it as a kid as lessons always seem to be children not teens or adults so I think it's tricky to learn later in life (maybe from a embarrassment perspective).

My DS went through a stage in stage 3 that seemed a bit pointless. He swims for a club now. I think swimming is a really important life skill. I would stick at it.

Personally I wanted mine to be able to do at least 50m. In the end it didn't work out because DD2 was getting upset about her lessons (later diagnosed autistic) but I think she could do at least 25m and was midway through stage 4. DD1 could do 100m and was in stage 6.

Same! Hardly any kids in my children's primary classes did weekly swimming lessons because they can't afford it. What do the "stage 5 minimum" people think people who can't afford weekly classes do?!

If she is in lessons, and has no additional needs then she should be able to swim further than that by this age, and with a proper stroke.

So, no, she needs to stay in lessons. If she isn’t getting it then I’d get some one-to-one lessons.

Both my kids started surfing at 7, and needed to be able to swim a minimum of 50 meters to do that. So, that’s my baseline for that age.

So basically she can’t swim if it’s 8-10 meters in a not properly defined stroke. Which is pretty poor actually for age 6 (it’s more that what I’d expect from a 4YO that has done maybe half a term of lessons…). Which means absolutely she needs more lessons, perhaps with a different provider if this teacher isn’t very good.

I totally agree that the swim stages are a bit bonkers with some totally unnecessary stuff like pushing butterfly v early but the point I would start to question ‘is it worth it’ would more likely to be around stage 5. My minimum would be- 2+ lengths of front crawl and backstroke and able to tread water for 5 minutes. I’ve just let DD stop at age 8 but she can do the above and also gets a term a year of lessons at school to top up any technique that she doesn’t practice during fun family swim.

My son had swimming lessons where the high spot at the end of the term was being deliberately flung out an inflatable (in a big pool) so they would have at least some idea of what to do in an emergency and suddenly finding themselves in the water. Confidence is fine but it can encourage people to take risks before their capabilities. I have seen people panic in deep water and just start some sort of frantic dog paddle instead of pulling themselves together and doing a crawl to the rail. (This was the result of an extremely unfortunate experiment by my school phys ed teacher about linking hands and some sort of weird swimming in a circle which had the weakest swimmers who started in the shallow end all reaching the deepest part of the pool at the same time.) Yes, they were weak swimmers but they could swim and honestly the edge wasn't that far away if they just stopped hanging on to each other and swam for the edge or the shallow end.

I have seen it more than once. I and several other people were nearly washed away down a river crossing gone wrong during a school trip. I just started swimming for the bank but other people stayed hanging on to a log which was meant to have weighted us down enough to cross the river safely without being swept away. We ended up being bowled over by the current and were all being swept down the river and clinging to the log was absolutely no use. Two people stayed on that log and did nothing to help themselves. Luckily, a couple of the bigger boys who were strong swimmers managed to pull them back as I was emerging from the river like a drowned rat. If we had gone into the main part of the river where were headed we would have drowned but they were just clinging to the log having seemingly lost all commonsense. I am amazed that we survived our school years in retrospect. Nothing like having an ex army phys ed teacher - it was like simply years of boot camp.

My mother's family were Irish fishermen for generations. No helicopter rescue in the old days and only very rudimentary safety precautions. My mother was raised to have an utter fear and respect for the sea because those people knew what it could do when things turned bad. These were men going out in small boats (currachs) in treacherous, deep-sea conditions.

Our 11 year old still goes, think she has been going 3 years. She is a very competent swimmer now and can beat me in a race. She likes going though and means that she swims every week which she def wouldn't if we were taking her. Also gets free use which is handy when I take her and the youngest at half term etc.

No, probably not.
You can easily replace it if it drowns.
Hope that helps.

🙄

Oh come on... There's LOADS of 5 and 6 year olds in the swimming school that can't even swim 5 metres.

There certainly are no 4 year olds I. Stage 3 in the session before ours, during or after...

Don't make out that at 6 they can and should all be able to swim 10+m or whatever.

Only on fucking Mumsnet is every child a Prodigy and swimming 50m at 3 and reading shakespeare at 4 and grade 8 on the violin at 6.

Well why is that her friends can't do the same either? Her year 1 pals that have been swimming with us and are having lessons can't swim 10 m with a good stroke?

Honestly, people on MN live in a world so far away from normal.

My daughter has had regular lessons since 2.. swimming twenty lengths at 7 is unusual and certainly not the norm.

@AldiLidlDeeDee Me too. Group lessons were a total waste.

Join a swimming club.

There's 4-6 in her class. She's been to two She still took a year to get from. 2 to 3, her little friend is still in stage 2 and he started about 6 weeks before her.

She isn't a natural athlete. But I don't think it should take an entire year for them to progress.

She's not good enough for a club.

The benchmark we used was 4 lengths of the 25m pool, one breaststroke, one front crawl, one backstroke, one free choice. Once they had the skill / stamina to do that I figured it was good enough.

Then maybe the swim teachers you’re using aren’t that great? Especially if she is waiting a long time for her go. Mine was never like that. They had a couple of inspectors per skill group, and the group was limited to 6 kids, as 3 could swim at a time when the instructors wanted to watch the stroke closely (as the pool was divided up for more classes on at once). So one group of 3 would swim their length or breadth, one group would wait and go when the others returned. All 6 could go at a time when they were just practicing. Very rarely was it one at a time; that was for diving and going down to collect the brick thing from the bottom of the pool. Hardly any waiting around and lots of swimming.

You might have a bad pool.

Really not sure why you think we’re all living in a different world when you’re getting comments from people all over the country, at all different pools, describing the level their kids were at at that age. What’s more likely - we’re all lying? Or the pool you’re at is the odd one out here?

Are you taking her weekly so she can continue to work on her stamina?

That's what crunched it for me. I didn't want to take them swimming regularly myself (plus to do so actually cost more than the monthly swimming lessons) so they stayed in lessons after they could do basic swimming.

DS has passed stage 5, can do 100m front and back but I'd not class him as a strong swimmer so I'm continuing to keep him in lessons. DC2 has technically passed her 10m but I'd say she's a non-swimmer still, she's in stage 3 lessons.

I agree that MN children tend to apparently swim 'better' than your average child.

At the start of year 4 swimming lessons in my DD's primary (so age 8), about 1/3rd were effectively non swimmers, 1/3 could swim a bit, and 1/3 could swim a length. Only 2 or 3 could swim multiple lengths really well having clearly had regular lessons. (This was the same each year, I accompanied about 4 years worth of DC to the pool).

That said, having started lessons I personally think it would be good to get to the stage where your DC can do 3 recognisable strokes and swim at least a length, and tread water. Being able to swim is good for fitness, holidays and general confidence around water and access to water based sports.

But if you don't have the funds, or don't wish to prioritise it, that's your call.

I didn't bother either. I taught mine to swim but though they should do it properly - waiting list was crazy after COVID so took years to get a slot.

Like you, they did so little and it was putting her off swimming. I think if they can do 50m in front crawl and breast stroke (doesn't need to be perfect but recognisable), can tread water and are confident on their backs even if they don't do proper backstroke, they'll be fine.

For us it was time she could be doing proper lengths and building stamina wasted on perfecting butterfly.

As long as you get her in the water and build stamina I don't think formal lessons are essential.