To let DS stop swim lessons?

[user1478188491]

DD age 8 has just completed Stage 4 (swim England) swim lessons and it’s been a struggle for a while to keep him motivated to go every week.
He can swim confidently and strongly and swim 25m backstroke and front crawl with good breathing technique.
If anyone is familiar with the system of the swim England they go up in Stages in percentages, it took a looooong time to get from 80-100% on stage 4 and he was getting disheartened each week realising he hasn’t moved up any percent.

Would it be irresponsible to let him finish now?
Or would it be ok to stop?

I am battling with the mental ‘It’s a life skill non negotiable’ view that comes with swim lessons however he can swim and unless they want to be in Galas or competitions is this enough?

WWYD?

We stopped at level 5 and 6 for one child.

It just got too expensive - they were older than most other kids as they started later but when we did the summer level 3-4 courses prior it was obvious - and other parents commented -they were actually much further along with strokes than most for that level.

There was one thing all the while - and it was because next class didn't have spaces - and least useful - instead of telling us so we could stop and wait they kept taking the money.

DD1 did an adventure holiday involving water and had to be accessed skill wise - I was worried as she'd only got to end of level 5 - and turned out she was one of the strongest swimmers.

Though once we stopped actual lesson we did few years of hoilday activties - every hoilday so they learnt new things there as well.

I'd have loved them to get to level 7 but money and time and them losing interest in the levels stopped that. They are sensible round water - know the dnagers we used to live near brick ponds - very deep and every few years young men often stong swimmer died ignoring all the signs. So they can swim enough to do things but not to point they are over confident.

As an aside, if you want kids/ people to take the sea seriously, make them swim in it. My uncle got my cousin and I to swim about 200m in the sea when we were ten (and dangerously confident). We were wearing lifejackets, he was nearby, and it was so difficult it scared the absolute shit out of me. You can lecture your kids til the cows come home, but I learned everything I needed to know that day! Also long seaweed is an arse to swim through.

Interestingly ours do!
They do safety, flags on the beach, throwing rescue kit, how to signal for help if you are in trouble in the sea and float to live.
But we live right by the sea so maybe that’s why.

I find the whole swimming lessons thing so bizarre. My son did a couple aged 5 and hated it and so we just went swimming together for fun and he learned that way. I can swim but know nothing about teaching, but as kids have done for millennia he naturally developed the skills and loved it.
There is always the danger that you will put them off swimming for the rest of their life by making it into such a dreadful chore, when it’s an incredibly wholesome activity and something to be encouraged for fitness. I just don’t understand why parents insist on this weird approach

Stop the lessons, but keep taking him swimming. So he can have fun. He will get stronger and more confident and be able to swim further. Take him with another kid maybe ?

he can always go back to
lessons to learn the survival skills aspect later

My kids all stopped at stage 4, tbh they swim like fish and were bored of swimming up and down pools using different strokes and just wanted to play. We do swim a fair bit in the pool, wild swim in the loch. They can swim a lot, if required, I like to swim lengths and will set a pool challenge so 15 lengths and we will get hot chocolate after which they can do. They just don’t choose to swim lengths without incentive.

Ironically swimming lessons are cheaper for us than non-member casual sessions at our nearest public pool. That's without the bonus "membership" that the DCs have that allow them to swim for free in casual sessions at the pool they go to (different local authority)

For a casual session, I have to pay for myself on top of the children.

We do quite a lot of water sports and an annual tradition is when the season starts to go out on the loch where we spend most of our time and kids jump in and swim back to shore. I think it is good to know your limits also good to practice getting back on your paddle board in deep water or into your kayak. If you practice then you won’t panic.

My kids never did swimming lessons because DS1 went a few times when he was 5 and absolutely hated it. DH took them instead and by the time DS1 was 8 he was representing his school and asked to swim for the county, but he didn’t want to. He represents his squadron and regiment in swimming competitions both in the pool and open water now too.

DS2 is also a strong swimmer, who represented his school at times.

I wouldn’t be forcing a child into going who really didn’t want to, as long as you or your DP can take him yourself.

I think for me it would depend on whether you are able/willing to take him swimming recreationally regularly enough for him to keep it up.

I think being able to swim 25m is pretty adequate from a not drowning POV but the qn is more would he still be able to in 5 years time?

I listened to a report a while ago saying a lot of young males drown in reservoirs are confident swimmers. Non or weaker swimmers recognise their limitations.
Young males in a group can get over confident and quickly become overwhelmed.
Maybe just having a 25m badge for swimming in an indoor pool might not be a bad thing as lads ( in general).go through the teenage years!

Before you jump on me with your stories about how sensible your lads are I'm not being totally serious and suggesting giving up lessons. Just pondering that year after year too many young people drown in reservoirs and we hear tales about them being good swimmers.

My DD took a long time to get through stage 5 - several years (including lockdowns) but then got stages 6 - 10 done in less than a year after that so sometimes they get stuck and it suddenly clicks. However I didn’t have a struggle getting her there, which I think makes a big difference.
She was also older than 8 when completing these levels so perhaps after a break (with going swimming to keep his skills) it could be he asks to go again. I would definitely let him have a break though

Do those advocating for many more swim lessons swim regularly themselves? I used to be able to swim 1/2 a mile as a young teen (I got a badge!) and apart from kiddy swimming with my chid I've not swum much routinely since. I was rather horrified on my return to swimming that I was tired and putting my feet down after 1 length of the pool. I've worked up the stamina now to do 20 lengths without stopping but it's taken regular swimming for a good few weeks. I'd not be confident about simming a long distance in the sea even now.

I suspect most people overestimate their own swimming abilities based on how much stamina and skill they used to have as a child!

Not any more but I also know I’m not ‘water safe’ because I don’t have the stamina I used to have. So I’d be pretty cautious about going into open water even though I used to be able to swim a mile.

I know a kid who has just done himself a serious injury jumping from height into water.

I doubt he would have done this if he wasn't a good swimmer.

The risk from not being able to swim wasn't the problem in this scenario.

It takes so long for children to learn to swim. Mine can all swim now but I hated taking them to lessons (so busy and hot and they never all had lessons at the same time so there was far too much hanging around). I think the older two got to stage 7 and youngest stopped halfway through 5 (but was having school lessons when he stopped and was in the top swimming group for his class). He also tried a few pools as didn’t like the cold water. He came on loads swimming on holiday. You/DC are so nearly there- it’s worth it in the end!

I think in most pools they can go without an adult at 8. Going with their friends will be much more appealing than formal lessons.

i would say at least 50m as a PP has posted this is a common minimum requirement for outdoor activities or even just swimming in the deep end in some pools (my niece was once made to prove she could do 50m by a life guard when she was just in with her friends).

A friend whose child also hated swim lessons told their child that once they got to a certain level they could stop and that motivated the child so that could be something to try to ease the pain.

if your child isn’t enjoying their current lessons I would look for other providers. Things I look for are low class sizes, teachers that are giving constant feedback and engaging with kids, and classes that keep kids moving - they don’t learn to swim by sitting on the side while a teacher talks for twenty minutes. I would consider giving the child a break and may be picking up later if it is a real problem. I would also try and take them for some family swims so that they see swimming as a fun way of moving and not a chore.

I am so glad I learnt to swim as a child. My final lessons (can't remember what age) were swimming 32 lengths, so stopping at 25m seems an incredibly low bar to me. I swim incredibly sporadically but easily - went for my first pregnancy swim at 30 something weeks and did 60 lengths no problem. Lots of people claim they've taught their children well themselves, like my parents in law, but the learners have very poor technique. If you have been taught well, swimming is much easier as it is more efficient.

Yes, I can swim a mile in open water (so no rest and energy-saving turns)

It was well worth the embarrassment of being a non-swimming teenager going to "adult" lessons and being the only u60 there. Swimming and aqua-natal were valuable to me when most other forms of exercise were off limits.

I didn't want my DCs' choices of activities to be curtailed like mine had been.

What choices might be curtailed by not being able to swim a mile in open water?

Stage 4 is absolutely not an advanced stage of competence.

My DC know that they have to continue lessons or swim related structured activity into high school. I've got 2 past year 8 so far.

We live on the coast and it is imperative that they are strong, capable and experienced swimmers.

All my children have been 1 of a very small minority who were at the required standard in KS2, and yet they were also v much in the minority for still attending swimming lessons. Those who were nowhere near the required KS2 standard had all given up lessons years before.

We've attended a variety of provision over the years, including holiday intensives instead of weekly sessions due to teacher issues or boredom or the kids hating particular pools.

I'd try to find a type of provision that is more tempting and engaging for your DC and keep them going to the end of primary at least.

Both my now adult/ late teen DD attended swimming lessons until they were 14. Until they were about 9 they were very average swimmers for their age. It was the extra years of weekly lessons that made them into really good swimmers. They'll always have those stroke and breathing techniques and at a swimming pool will always swim well. There were phases when they weren't particularly keen to go and phases where they "stuck" at one grade for longer than they'd have liked but if you ask them now they're glad they carried on. They never swam competitively - not that good- but it's a great life skill.

Not being able to swim 25m curtailed my activity choices for school camp and banned me from activities that sounded interesting. I was left a "choice" of 2 out of 6, one of which sounded chronically boring. The irony was that one that I really wanted to do (a gorge walk) required no swimming ability during the droughty low water levels, but no tick in the box still ruled it out.

I couldn't go swimming with friends because who wants to be left in the shallow zone while they had the whole pool and diving boards avaliable.

Later in life, if I hadn't learned to swim I'd have lost out on the only accessible exercise in hard pregnancies

I generally felt inadequate about not being able to do something "basic" that everyone else could do (along with not being able to ride a bike). At primary school there were 2 of us out of 60 that hadn't got the hang of it by the end of primary school lessons. DM didn't do swimming because it's a bit cold. (It also fed into the family narative that females are shit at sport before becoming frail and enduring 30 years of arthritis from 60 to 90)

Going to adult lessons at 16 was embarrassing- and the pensioners there didn't appreciate a whippersnapper splashing around, but when I progressed, it became empowering. 2 years later I could swim a mile.

I wanted better for my children, and especially as one of them turned out to be dyspraxic (wonder where that came from...), so it's been a long, slow time. DS1 isn't currently interested in swimming (grumpy teen) but at least he's got those skills and options and isn't held back by being unable. DS2 is doing Rookie Lifeguard for the fun of it.

At their age, I felt like not being able to swim was a shameful, limiting secret. What they do about swimming now is their choice, but at least they do now have options.

@TreeDudette asked if posters could swim strongly in adulthood, and I do. Having been a non-swimming teenager who couldn't go down the deep end, the diving boards, the water slides and didn't get the choiced on school trips, I appreciate the practical differences between being a non/ weak swimmer and a strong swimmer, and it was important to me that my DCs could do more than the minimal 25-50m. The mile is only relevant in that I can still do it regularly and have maintained my swimming ability. The great thing about swimming is that you retain the technique and as long as you're fit, the stamina comes back quickly after long breaks.

@BogRollBOGOFI agree being able to swim 25 metres is important. I was asking about a mile in open water!