Am I expecting too much from swimming lessons

[Penns]

My 3 year old son has been having swimming lessons for about a year. His GP takes him normally as I work FT but I go along to the odd lesson to see how's he doing.

I took him this week and left feeling abit disappointed with the lack of progression. His confidence is better but not much else has changed.

The instructor is lovely and my son likes her, but we are paying £60 for 6 x30min lessons and not much seems to be happening . Another thing that annoyed me recently is that on one occasion when no other children turned up, she cut the lesson short by 15 mins rather than spending the full 30mins with him, which I didn't agree with.

AIBU to expect more from the lessons or is this typical to not really see much progression at this age?

3 is a young age for swimming lessons. And you started him at 2? What progress did you expect in the last year? My daughter is 6. Started lessons at 5. We've seen a lot of progression. Maybe take then out until they're older?

That’s such a good point; it never occurred to me but now it seems obvious.

I don’t think that’s true because I was doing swimming classes from a baby and could swim a width of a pool by 3. And the kid I learnt with ended up on the England youth team. Me, on the other hand, nothing lasting to show for it!

My son started going to the lessons as a 6 month old he's 6 now. He loves going to swim school. I take him into the big pool after his lesson as he cheats - he can stand in the teaching pool so doesn't kick.

He can swim with a noodle and now trying floats. We are going his pace, the teacher is happy with his progress. The only 2 things he won't do is jump in and put his head under the water.

How is he in the pool when he's not in a lesson?

I have a 5 year old who started lessons at 4 and made no progress so I just take him at least once a week myself. My older child has done lessons since she has been 3 and loved every second of them. All children are different.

He's only 3 now and been doing it a year? So he was 2 or 3 for all of the lessons?

At that age, they can't physically swim in terms of strokes as they still have 'toddler bodies'. Large head, short limbs, they are just out of proportion to be able to actually swim. It's not until they get to about 5 that their bodies become more able to move in the right way for swimming.

They can have fun in the water, learning to float, how to hold their breath under the water, blow bubbles, jumping in, splashing about, generally becoming water confident. But in terms of actual swimming it's still going to be a while before you see much progress.

I taught children to swim for a couple of years and agree with other posters. It's all about water confidence at that age. From what I can remember it was things like blowing bubbles, jumping in, moving safely around the pool edge, learning to hold on to the side of the pool, moving in the water etc. Until they are at stage 1 around (5) and start learning to properly swim. I take my 4 year old myself , and will start her at 5 at our local council pool. I agree they shouldn't of cut the lesson short though I'm guessing it's because she got through it quicker? But she should of just added things on to fill the 30 minutes you paid for.

I felt guilty about not sending my son swimming until he was 6. Feeling slightly smug now.

My DC all started lessons at the local swimming club at age 4, prior to this a parent had to be in the pool with them. All 3 loved the water and were very good following instructions and went up the stages fairly quickly, so it seemed the right age for them.

The monthly cost of lessons included free swimming, so we only ever had to pay for ourselves on weekends. At their school they only did 6 swimming lessons a year from Y3-Y6.

My DS’s swim school won’t take them until 4 at the earliest. DS started at 4.5 when he started reception but that year was heavily disrupted by Covid so we didn’t see too much progress what with all the lockdowns. Y1 he made tons of progress and now in Y2 at nearly 7 he’s really swimming well and refining proper strokes and breathing. I think 3 is just a bit young to expect proper swimming.

My daughter is 5 and has been going to swimming lessons since she was 6 months and it's just been to build up water confidence and make her comfortable in the water. She loves swimming and is now at the stage where she's ready to actually learn.

She started doing lessons on her own in October and tbh they are a bit pointless as it's teacher to 10 or 12 kids so they spent half the lesson bobbing around at one end of the pool.

I found a teacher to teach her 1-1 who did more in half an hour than other teacher managed in about 3 months.

I'd continue to go but treat it as a confidence building exercise only and look into 1-1 lessons when 5 or 6.

My youngest was just starting to swim without armbands at that age but he's ridiculous for his age. He's 4 now and can do 25m on his back, 10m on his front without armbands. He's honestly something else. He's the youngest in his class by about 2-3 years.

I can brag about that one but my eldest at 3 was very much still a toddler group/singing ring a roses in the water, watering can over the head, caught when jumping in sort of affair. She didn't start to swim properly until she was 5. Now she's 6 she can do front/back crawl, breast stroke, and is learning to dive. She had no progress for a long time aged 3-4 then it all seemed to happen at once.

It goes to show how much individual progress depends on the kid.

If it's fun, you're all enjoying it then crack on, if you're not happy then bin it off and go as a family.

My ds(aged 6) went with his grandparents for 4 years until I went once with him and he could barely do anything. I was paying loads and so I took him out and joined a gym with a pool and for the past year have been teaching him myself and he has made so much more progress and can now swim. I plan to put him in some intensive courses in the summer. The swimming lessons helped with water confidence but not much else really!

I don’t think there’s any harm in the regular routine of lessons and keeping up with water confidence etc, but expecting more than enjoying being in the water and showing confidence with that is probably a bit much at 3.

One of my dc (my first so I thought it was all down to my parenting!) is a fab swimmer & was definitely actually swimming pre-3, made it to stage 4 at just turned 5 (moving her up was a bit of a drama cos they were worried she was too physically little for the big pool) & now swims competitively at 10. The other had exactly the same lessons and didn’t get out of stage 3 until they were 7. It was painful! But I still think they got a lot out of the lessons even if they were just splashing around for literally years!

confidence in the water and having a clue what to do if you fall in is SO important that I don’t think it’s a waste even when they’re little and making limited progress stroke wise.

YABU. At this age it’s about water confidence and fun. Don’t expect anything that looks much like actual swimming before 5/6.

One of my grandsons aged 3 can swim a width of the baby pool unaided, but does it mainly underwater like a tadpole. Swimming lessons gave him great water confidence, but swimming with his parents and on holidays did the most

At 3 water confidence and enjoyment is what you’re aiming for and anything else is a bonus. My 3 year old is progressing nicely and can do lots with floats and is now starting to swim independently (can do a width on her back without a float and a few metres on her front). Most of her class are very much not there though. For many it’s a big thing getting their face wet, blowing bubbles, jumping in etc. The pre/school classes are largely about getting them into a good place to progress with the stages once they’re school age.

He very young. At that age it's about getting confidence. If he starts learning around 5 you see more progress. However he should get his full 30 mins

I took my sons to the pool twice-weekly as babies to make sure they would always be water confident. They took to swimming as readily as to crawling on land (similar motor skills and we have evolved from water-based mammals, after all).

I would certainly expect a child to be swimmingly strongly - lengths, at least - at three. (Not in every stroke, obviously. Butterfly can be tricky at such an age.)

By five, mine had their mile badges and, although one now refuses to go near water at all (psychologist believes it is probably temporary and may not even be related to their training regime), the other has learned to breathe underwater and now lives with a school of dolphins during the school holidays.

Raise your expectations, people!

@MasterBeth - lol. well played. You had me until the 2nd paragraph.

We only did half-term courses to start with; DD enjoyed them, but I could see that she didn't really understand well enough what she needed to do differently, however much she was shown. Once she began to be able to copy effectively, then I signed her up for regular lessons, but she was definitely at least 5, possibly 6.

We started lessons young as he was petrified of water, even the bath. His confidence has come on leaps and bounds which I'm really happy with. I wasn't expecting actual swimming at this age. I probably would have left it longer to start lessons otherwise.

I suppose I was questioning the progression as the other children in his class, 5 in total who are the same age seem to be doing a lot more. They can swim with a float and 2 swim discs across a small section of the pool unaided for example.

Sometimes I do feel like he's too young for proper lessons, but would hate for his confidence to go away if we stopped taking him .He still won't jump in like the others and doesn't seem to enjoy it as much.

My DD has just turned 3 and she's been having swimming lessons for about 1.5 years. We started her that young as she was 3 months old during when the first lockdown hit so it was more of a social interaction thing. But she has now started to have her lessons without DH in the water with her, she has so much confidence in water now, and loves to show me what she's learnt when we go for a family swim along with her baby sister. She can float like a star, she can do tiger arms and pizza arms (front crawl & breast stroke) but not the actual full swim. She's learnt to blow bubbles if she goes under water rather than panic and gulp!
I see all of that as progression for a 3 year old

My ds now 8 started at 4. He was petrified of the water even the bath so I was desperate for him to start earlier but the waiting list was really long. I managed to get a spot at an oddly timed class at a pool further from our house. Luckily, there were only 4 kids in the class and the teacher was superb. They barely used arm bands, went straight for floats.

What really helped was that after the lesson, we would go in the pool together. That extra bit of practice really helped. But honestly at that age, confidence was the main thing. Ds is now swimming 100m in the deep pool and does better butterfly than me.

Did she explain why she only did 15 mins on his own? I know Ds hated the lessons where it was just him because he had to swim all the time, but we always did 30 minutes even if the last 10 minutes was jumping in.

Thanks for this. We definitely aren't doing it to keep up with the Jones. We started lessons as he was petrified of water so we wanted to build confidence, which it has helped with. Plus I'm not a strong swimmer at all, struggle to swim 1 length as my parents pulled me out of lessons as a child and i dont want that for my son. I only queried the progress when i saw how well the other 4 children were doing.