Swimming

[yesokthen]

Aibu to wonder how far your child can swim? I understand the National goal is that kids can swim 25 metres by the end of primary but I keep hearing of all these 5 year olds and younger that can already do this.

We have a 7m old and are a few lessons in. I don't have much expectation about when he will swim properly. He just likes going, and with me back at work, it's our only activity. DH and I rotate.

I think for us it's water exposure and the social side. We like seeing him so happy and that's enough.

Honestly it depends on the child. My eldest wasn't a natural swimmer and done his 25m and gave up, he was around 8 when he did that and I didn't want to push him into something he wasn't enjoying. The youngest is totally different, she swam her mile at 7 and took to swimming straight away. She's gone on to swim for her primary and secondary schools and has always done well.

I think every child is different and for me the goal was teaching them to swim so they could be safe in the water. Every child has different abilities and won't be good at everything plus with all the pools being closed this past year I don't think you can put an age on anything because they've lost a year of lessons.

Ds is 7 and still uses a float to swim on his front. On his back he happily swims around like an otter.

He gets free lessons through his school (they have their own pool) and I used to take him but he’s not progressed very far yet. Plenty of time. I couldn’t swim until I was 10. Within a few months I was doing the 1500m.

DS3 is 9 and in year 4. They’ve been swimming with school this half term. Usually, the ones who can only do a couple of sessions then stop going. This year, there are so few able to do 25m that all 90 are completing the course.

COVID has affected things like children’s swimming hugely.

Incidentally, my DS can swim 25m, but we paid for very expensive 1:1 lessons a couple of years ago to get him to a stage where he was safe around water as he has ASD so couldn’t cope with group lessons. His progress was rapid, and we’ve swum with the DC as much as possible over the past year or so because we live near the coast and need them to be safe. They (DC3 & DD, who is 7) are definitely the outliers in their peer groups for their swimming at the moment though.

Like PP have pointed out, most swim schools now focus on building good technique rather than distance. DD started proper swimming lessons at around 4 and moved up pretty quickly but got a bit stuck at level 6 because her left foot position when doing breast stroke. She is now 14 and no longer has lessons but could swim 1/2 mile and did junior life guarding before she stopped in year 6. I think this is pretty standard for children who carry on through the stages although lots drop out when they can swim reasonably well.

@willstarttomorrow I completely agree it's more about the technique than distance now. Mine are teenagers now and were extremely lucky that my sister is a swim coach so we had free lessons. Both my sister and myself have swam competitively at national level and it was definitely more a focus on distance when we were younger.

My son is 10 but hasn't swam since he was 8 due to pandemic. He learnt at 5 - just with occasional visits to pool with me. He very quickly could swim 10m and last time he went could def. do 25m. However, he is not interested in how far he can swim - he much prefers to be under water swimming or collecting diving toys. He flatly refuses to go to classes, which is a shame as he is confident and fast but has no style at all 😂

My 4 year started waterbabies at 6 weeks old and can't swim. She could go quite some distance with a float if she wanted to. But she doesn't really enjoy the class structure and stubbornly refuses to do half the stuff. With more confidence and willingness she would most likely achieve a lot more but I'm not that fussed, I'm not going to force her and make her reluctant to go into the water at all

DC's school did some activity days recently and they were water based so they needed to know who could swim 25m confidently (they'd be in open water, not the pool). We live in an affluent area.
About 80% of Yr6 could.
About 40% of Yr4 could. This was lower than usual but probably due to Covid.

Is 25m a length? - both my dc could swim that at 5, technique wouldn't have won any awards but they could do it. Between pool closure due to refurbishment and covid they've had over a year odd swimming but haven't lost any ability on going back - in fact dd1 was put in a swim club group 2 levels up by accident and didn't notice. Dd2 is exactly where she left off. Both primary age. They were in lessons from 3 though.

My son is 11 and can swim 5 strokes, or could before covid. We're both ASD and between his sensory issues around water and my CFS and balance problems, swimming is a really hard ask for us.

Not quite sure what happens when he gets to secondary. They have a swimming pool, so I hope they don't just chuck him in in a spirit of optimism.

Both DS and DD could do 25m by about 5/6 but I'm a swimmer and they started lessons as babies (mainly for my benefit, I enjoyed taking them).

DS joined my long distance swimming club at 9 and within 6 months could do 1.5km in an hour, which was something we worked towards as a club. We regularly submitted cross channel relay teams, so it was very much 'a thing'. He's now nearly 12 and swims competitively.

DD is currently 9, and hasn't joined my club, but also swims competitively at school, they ask them to do a 250m warm up, which I think is the most she could do.

They are good swimmers, but I'm sure it's as a result of my love of swimming and the amount of time we spend as a family, in and around the water. DS also got his first scuba diving certification at 10, as I also dive and was keen for him to learn. There are definitely children in DD's year (4) who swim a maximum of 25-50m, although at DS's age (Y7), they can all do 100m minimum.

Granddaughter 12 had 4 lessons with school nothing more and cannot swim

Just to add, we used Better for swimming lessons, costs us £28 a month for DD, so £7 a lesson, which I think is much more affordable than some of the other providers. Pre-Covid I would go and watch and found the standard of teaching very good - they certainly enabled both DC to swim well without the £££ bill.

My 7 year old had been having lesson's since he was 3. He has only just really got it and can swim 25 meters doing front crawl, breast stroke and back stroke.

Mines been going to hydro since a couple of months old as her brothers have EDS and we go as a family. She's 6 and just passed 200m but it is because she's always been swimming

When dd was yr 4 and it was her years turn for school lessons, out of the full year five could swim. Some kids had never even been swimming.
Dd had lessons from age 5. She can swim. 25m, jump in and swim straight to the side and tread water.
We live by the sea so I considered it important.

My just turned 5 year old could do 10m comfortably on her back but she struggles with coordination on her front so hasn’t got her 5m ticked off yet. I’d say she was at a similar standard at 3 and stagnated a bit over lockdown. She’s the youngest by a long way in her stage 2 class. You can see the older ones just have better coordination now and I think she struggles to do both her arms and legs together. I’d be confident she’d hit her 25m by 6 or 7 though.

DC1 aged 10 is basically a fish and can easily go up and down the lengths with DH for ages.

DC2 aged 6 has dyspraxia and is nowhere near being able to coordinate arms & legs, let alone do any actual swimming!!

DS is 11 and can do about 10 lengths before needing a break.

DD is 8 and can confidently swim about 4 lengths in a pool. I took her lake swimming a couple of weeks ago though and she wouldn't let go of the tow float. She said she enjoyed it but she clearly needs more practice.

I can’t swim so I made sure my DDs could. DD1 got her 1600m badge at 10 years old and DD2 got her 800m badge aged 7.

My dd could swim 25m at 6 and about 200m at 8/9.
My 9yr old DTs ... one can probably just swim 25 m the other no chance...

All 3 had same opportunities to learn but DD could and DTs just couldn't 🤷‍♀️

My daughter is 4 and can't swim at all. She was due to start lessons before covid hit but obviously didn't. She could have restarted in April this year but I didn't think there was much point doing 4 months of lessons in the preschool class before having to move classes. Hopefully she can start lessons in September

My 9 year old can’t swim at all.

My 12 year olds can swim on their backs ok but not so well on their fronts, maybe a width.

We only started swimming lessons last year and then Covid promptly stopped them.

My nearly 12 year old can barely swim. Have tried since a very young age with lessons but they just can not get the hang of it. Been told many times that a majority of people will be able to learn to swim and a very small portion will unfortunately never learn no matter what - my child falls in the latter.