Learning to swim- how important is it?

[cherrycat]

I have been reading posts on another well known parenting site by a woman who was worried she hadn't taken her 8 yr old to swimming lessons or hardly ever went to the pool due to finances (It was interesting to see she was ttc baby no2 on her ticker) and lazyness on her part......so her daughter couldn't swim and she felt slightly guilty about this.
A handful of people had posted saying 'don't worry my kids can't swim either' 'it's not important unless you live on a boat' or 'it's schools job to teach 'em'........I was rather shocked that these parents didn't think swimming was an important life skill!
I've been taking my DD swimming since she was 4 months old (@waterbabies) and now she has regular swimming lessons at local pool. I could never imagine not going on holiday or for days out near water and my daughter not being able to swim.....surely it's a potential lifesaver in a dangerous situation?

What are your thoughts?

I expect he would hope someone would come to his rescue in time!

Definitely important. I agree the lessons when they're tiny are probably unnecessary, but definitely important that they learn to swim and I'm not sure many schools are lucky enough to have the time to teach kids properly who don't have opportunities to swim outside school.

And aside from the usefulness of being able to save yourself from drowning, what about all the other activities that would be impossible/less enjoyable if you were a non-swimmer: sailing, canoeing, water ski-ing, scuba diving... they're mostly out of my budget right now, but I would like to think that if my DDs ever got the chance to do any of them they'd be confident enough to say yes.

I have to declare an interest here as I recently qualified as a swimming teacher! Having tried to teach kids to swim who have never been in a pool until they are 8 and are then scared of putting their faces in, it is very difficult! My own kids could both swim when aged 3-4 so never really had 'official' lessons and both are now great club swimmers. My advice would be to take kids to the pool as young as possible and as often as possible so they are comfortable there and if you are scared yourself please dont tell them as they pick up the same fears! Oh and its never too late to learn yourself - many pools now offer adult classes as well.

Swimming is a non-negotiable activity for my children, but it's largely because we live in a Cornish village about 300m from the sea. They need to swim competently to join the surf lifesaving club at 7yo when they will then be taught decent sea survival/rescue techniques. We see far too many people (locals and holiday makers alike) not having enough respect for open water and getting into difficulty because they don't understand tides, currents, sand banks etc. So while the actual swimming skills are important (especially to me), I agree with the poster who places emphasis on teaching the dangers of water too.

I'm lucky that my two love it, but stepson doesn't, and is very anxious so we are taking it steady with him.

Be aware though that if your dcs turn out to be rather good swimmers then you will lose your life to the side of a swiming pool - and swim meets all over the country not to mention the 5.30am swim on a Saturday.
I was so pleased when dd1 decided to swap clubs and go from 6 times a week to just 3 once she had reached Regional level.

Having said that it has been great at keeping her fit and she loved synchronised swimming too - lots of opportunites.

We found swimming lessons an utter waste of time. What a swizz - personally think they are to make parents feel smug. DD is quite fearful and anxious after a year of pointless lessons still couldnt swim so we stopped going.

On holiday this year there was a very deep pool, she couldnt touch the bottom. It took DH and I 4 days to between us teach her to swim - by the end of the second week she was doing lengths. She had just turned 5 so wouldnt beat yourself up about not doing regular lessons.

I think active life saving is good too, i.e. being a lifeguard and being able to handle a situatoin that has turned distressful, like getting someone who can't swim out of the water, and resuscitation, calming crowds, and calling for help in the right way. But childrens development wont allow them to pick up on all that until they are ready for it.

I don't think it's the end of the world if you don't give your child swimming lessons. It depends on your lifestyle. I guess if you can't afford swimming lessons you are unlikely to be going on holiday somewhere with a pool, perhaps?

I'm not sure what the OP meant about the poster ttc no. 2. I think a child might benefit more from having a sibling than swimming lessons?

As a former swim instructor, I'd of course say it's an important life skill.

However, I don't think it's necessary to do swimming lessons before the age of 5 if you can't afford it. If you can afford it and want to do it, then go for it. But before about 5 or so, most kids aren't really going to learn to swim. They might learn to be comfortable in the water, do some floating and obviously important safety skills for around water too. But I think it takes until about 5 or so to have the coordination and strength to properly swim. At 4 you might learn it, but under 4 you are just splashing about for fun. Nothing wrong with that, a lot right with it in fact. But if you want you kid to learn to swim, try once they are school age.

Even with a kid who can swim, proper parental supervision is important. Water is not the place to take chances.

I do think it's an important life skill to be able to swim, as well as adding fun to life, especially if you live at the seaside like me. But you don't have to spend a fortune on swimming lessons, just take them swimming frequently. My daughter could swim unaided age 4 having been frequently since babyhood, having a float jacket which I gradually took the floats out of until she could do it without realising. People who sign their kids up for a week's intensive course and expect that to cover it are fooling themselves. If you don't reinforce with plenty of practice they still won't be able to swim and you'll have spent lots of money for nothing.

As regards 'if you fall in a cold river...', yes of course no child will swim as well fully clothed after a shock fall into freezing water as they will in a nice warm pool in their cosi, but the child who can swim in the pool will still fare better than the child who is terrified of water having never been taken to the pool and who can't swim at all.

By the way I totally agree with GrimmaTheNome that there is no point sending them to classes to perfect their technique/teach them butterfly, unless you're actually thinking they may end up being a national swimmer or something. Unless they are keen to do that stuff, just be happy if they are happy and confident in the water and can swim enough to save themselves.

Classes for swimmers which do lifesaving techniques and swimming in pyjamas type activities would be more beneficial than butterfly (yes I have a chip on my shoulder about butterfly having been forced to attempt butterfly unsuccesfully as a child - OK?!) :-)

Happy swimming (skip the classes - just go!)
Vicki

Re: "I'm not sure what the OP meant about the poster ttc no. 2. I think a child might benefit more from having a sibling than swimming lessons?"

I'm guessing she was speculating about whether the woman in question would teach the next child to swim sooner as a result of her guilt over the first one!

So it seems that the opinion is that it is important to learn to swim - so what do I do about my ds, now 7, who has gone 'swimming' very regularly since he was tiny but HATES it. He still refuses to even try to take his feet off the bottom of the pool. He is just genuinely terrified of the water, and not because anything terrible has ever happened to him. On the other hand my dd,3, loves the water and will be swimming confidently before long.

Vickisuli - the inference I drew was that the OP was suggesting that the poster could afford to do swimming lessons if she could afford to have DC2...

Whether it's a life skill depends on your situation. We live in Surrey, not near the sea or a river. We don't have a pool, neither does anyone else we know and we don't do beachy pool holidays. We're too poor to go kayaking/windsurfing etc. DD will learn in primary school. That's plenty. Of course it'll all be different if she lives swimming when she starts. But I'm not getting 'life skill'

Gwendoline - I have to say I don't get the importance some people put on it because I don't swim very well and I have managed to survive 45 yrs without it ever being an issue. I hate it and don't regret not having more lessons one little bit, perhaps because as a child I didn't meet anybody who ever went swimming for fun either - it wasn't something we could afford when I was a child.

I think it is far far more important to make children learn they aren't invincible, that water is dangerous and that they should stay away if they don't swim properly. I would worry more about a child who had a few lessons, could swim a couple of lengths of a pool thinking they could cope with swimming anywhere as a result than one who was sensible enough to steer clear of water because they knew their swimming wasn't good. Over confidence is a worry.

I took my dd1 to a baby water class from ae 6 months to 9 months, at which point I went back to work and only took her every few months after that. Last year, when she was 6yrs old, I decided I wanted her to be safe in water, so started her at swimming lessons. She started off at beginner level, and most of the others in her group were 3 or 4 year olds. At this point I felt terrible for leaving it so long, when others in her school class could swim several lengths. Anyway, she picked it up very quickly and has, within a year, progressed through 4 more levels and now swims happily and is becoming stonger and more confident. The little ones who were in her beginner class have moved up one level. Her teacher said, because she is older, she is more able to understand and follow the instruction. So now I feel fine about it all! I have probably saved money by leaving it later. I have a 2 yr old too who I currently take swimming once a week, but I'll probably wait a few years until I pay for proper lessons.

Letchlady I was interested in what you said as I've always wondered, in relation to baby/toddler swimming classes, whether they aren't actually more likely to lead to DCs ending up in trouble in water if they ever got there unattended somehow. If you teach them to jump in confidently from the side, isn't there more risk they will do this (compared to one who isn't used to swimming) when nobody's around/fully clothed etc if they ever do wander off near a pool?

That said, I still do think it's a good skill to learn and we try to take the DCs to the pool at least occasionally (both still too young to learn proper swimming anyway).

I first took my daughter when she was just under 1, and would have taken her sooner if poss. I paid a lot(considering my tight budget then) but recently discovered that there are many subsidised community sessions, but the timing sometimes clashes with things.... Still my dd, now 4 and a half, often asks for us to go swimming together as she really enjoys it. Still uses floats, but she is comfortable , confident and aware of water safety... At the end of the day, you can make excuses for anything, but we live on an island with rivers and canals - think it is important, also for kids not to develop a fear of water when young.

Who is making excuses? Some of us on this island are a long way from water you know.

"If you teach them to jump in confidently from the side, isn't there more risk they will do this (compared to one who isn't used to swimming) when nobody's around/fully clothed etc if they ever do wander off near a pool?"

A good baby class should teach the baby to jump in a turn and reach for the side automatically when they jump in. As they are comfortable in the water they shouldn't panic and breath in water but automatically hold there breath. It not just swimming pools, children have drowned in a puddle of water just 2 inches deep because they panic and inhale the water.

Saying that safety advice should be followed at all times.

We (occasionally) kayak or go out in friends/ families boats, so for us, water confidence is an important skill. They wear buoyancy aids and if they fell in (as happened to another 3 year old) then we would paddle back to them so confidence, not swimming, is the priority here.
However, the kids have 4 water mad cousins on 1 side of the family and another on the other side, so then swimming becomes important as it's what they all really enjoy doing!
But we live in a double land locked county, all be it with a river running through it, and I totally respect other families decisions not to focus on swimming lessons as it is covered in KS2.
Run, bike, ski, your dh is being a bit silly not getting a little bit of water confidence for those situations? We have a ford near us on a bridle way and if it weren't for having to carry the Tagalong over the head the family would think that was great fun! Buy him some beginner lessons for Christmas! I know the MLTA say the best way to do river crossings is to avoid them but sometimes it's fun!

I think baby classes are for the mothers. My ds did them, my dd didn't; they both love the water. I saw heaps of babies spending the whole term shivering and crying and couldn't see that it was doing anything fir their water confidence.

My ds (5) and dd (2) have been doing a joint private classes. I didn't think dd was getting anything out of it (it just stopped her from hassling me while ds was in the water) but then she fell it the pool at home and just pulled herself out, completely unperturbed.

Re RunBikeSki's DH - TBH crossing a swollen river (a) carrying a bike (b) in walking boots etc sounds like something to be avoided whether you can swim or not. If its deep enough that swimming could come into it and its in spate, I'd take the detour too!

I agree that it doesn't have to be when they are tiny babies, but I think it's important and I think there are good reasons for doing it sooner rather than later - the fear factor is less likely to come in. My mum took me to learn when I was 3, because she herself had not learned to swim till late in life and had got to like it, but had spent years being fearful and not confident in the water, and she didn't want me to feel like that. I have always been a confident swimmer and now, even though I'm not sporty, I enjoy swimming.

As an investment, it's a good way of establishing a keeping-fit activity that can be fun as well as a whole body workout, and is also pretty cheap - I agree lessons aren't necessarily cheap, but once you've learned, you only need a swimsuit, towel and the admission to a local pool (free for kids near me). Lots of sports require much more expenditure (football kit costs etc) and take up more time in getting to the venue, so it is good to have as an entertainment and exercise option for kids, I think.