Fed up with the huge bills and swimming lesson hell, what swimming stage can children not drown if thrown into a swimming pool?

[MilaMae]

Have 3 dc.

When is enough enough?Not interested in olympic divers or swimmers just not drowning(live near lots of water).

TIA

[Bonsoir]

IME, group swimming lessons are just pointless for learning to swim. A very few (three or four) one-to-one lessons in a bash (same week) every now and again work much, much better than once-a-week in a group all winter and are a lot less stress for all concerned.

Group lessons (small groups) work when children can already swim a length and need to build up stamina.

[livinonaprayer]

My two oldest dc (8 and 6) can both swim well and we've never paid for a single lesson. They were swimming in the sea on holiday and jumping over and under the waves. They have taught themselves to swim and are confident and happy near water.
If safety is your main concern then I'm not sure traditional swimming lessons are the way forward as they focus on technique etc IMO
Once they are able to swim I don't see what further these types of lessons can offer.

[LC200]

DD is 7 and on Stage 5, and at a swimming club. She is never going to be a competitive swimmer, as her technique is a little scrappy, but she enjoys it, and it is a really, really good way of keeping her fit. She has had a mixture of group and private lessons; I agree that the private lessons enable them to progress MUCH quicker than they otherwise would. I will keep her going for as long as she wants to, but even if we give up the lessons, she will be going with me regularly for exercise, which is non-negotiable in this house! I think she will continue to Stage 7 as she really wants to do synchronised swimming! I fear the reality might not be quite so much fun as she is expecting it to be!

[NeverendingStoryteller]

Personally, I think that swimming is extremely important. Kids eventually 'click' with swimming, but lessons really help this process. You can also help your child to swim - visit www.uswim.com as this site will show you the kinds of lessons you can give your child.

Just remember that swimming is like anything else - you can teach your kids to swim, but they might not be very good in extreme conditions (surf, tidal rivers, etc), just as you might teach them how to ride a bike, but they don't cope very well on extreme hills, or at the skate park. Some kids are going to be good and others will be a bit more rubbish - but, the more they do it, the more confident they will be.

[TheHumanCatapult]

thank you

no pointy Not tropical I want to dive on the lakes .Thanks to friend have seen lots of videos on the wrecks there and i want a go but accept that tech diving will not happen .

[pointythings]

Catapult I admire you and I know you are going to make it.
And if you do, there's nothing stopping you from going somewhere warm and tropical and watching fish at 5 metres deep with a buddy - no chance of the bends at that depth, and your buoancy jacket will get you back to the surface. Here's wishing you there!

[Bluebell99]

My two have stopped having passed the new Stage 8, although my ds also did some of the life saving courses, bronze and silver, but we stopped those due to the stressy teacher making him stand on the side for 25 mins trying to throw the rope 20 ms!
Personally i would be happy if they stopped after stage 7 as they seem to swim competantly then and that's what the swimming centre requires them to have reached to do other courses such as challenge, life saving and sychronised swimming.

[TheHumanCatapult]

pointy can now swim almost 100 metres just with my arms so i shall find a way .even if just at recreational dive level .

Friend is dive master and promised that he elp me find a way if i can swim 400metres on upper body .don`t think he thought i get anywere near it I shall and I will

[pointythings]

That's tricky, Catapult - quite difficult to fin effectively without lower body strength...

However, all scuba starts with pool training and that should give you an idea of what you can and can't do - all the best, it's a lovely thing to do. I am waiting until DD2 is 10 until starting the DDs on scuba training as that is the youngest they will take them for pool training and I don't want WW3 to break out, but they can both snorkel well and have good finning technique.

[TheHumanCatapult]

pointy i want to do scuba but am working on building up my upper body as i now ahve no lowerbody strenth before i terrify some poor dive master by booking lessons .

to be fair I have someone in mind who i may ask but also think becuase he knows me very well he is mor elikely to wrap me in cotton wool somay be not

[pointythings]

Couldn't agree with you more, Catapult - I would love the DCs to do a course on open water safety. Until I find a good one, passing on what I learned in scuba training will have to do.

[TheHumanCatapult]

lucy diving in is all well and good but survival wise dc need to learn they either wade in or go feet first .

And diving needs to be ingraned no diving in places do not know and pool wise water has to be deep enoguh

[TheHumanCatapult]

i would say learning how to behave near open water is as if not more important than swimming distance .

As a child my best friends brother drowned in the sea . .But messing around with his friends with a raft .Raft tipped hit him on the head .they found his body 24 hrs later washed further up

Now we were all strong swimmers in open water and the sea and talking miles diving of piers etc all knew to swim acors sin sea not out but we did do it .

But messing around cost him his life at the age of 12

[lucykate]

ds is on level 2, dd is level 4. will keep them going till either 5 or 6, dd really wants to learn how to dive in.

[pointythings]

So I'm not the only one who has issues with butterfly! IMO it is just not essential for survival and should only be taught in swimming clubs where the aim is to compete. Lessons should focus on the other three strokes, stamina and endurance, survival techniques and being comfortable with being under water.

At our pool they did a lot of work on body position as this helps you swim efficiently, using up less energy - good for survival. They put fins on the children and had them streamline, using legs only and concentrating on staying level in the water whilst breathing with technical correctness - made a big difference to DD2.

I agree that once they stop, they do drop back a bit depending on where they stopped - my DDs stopped at current ASA stage 5 (old level 8) and DD2 is still a bit scrappy - but she will have a term of swimming lessons in school next year. Those who can swim properly will have a qualified instructor (instead of the poor class teacher doing their best) and will be working on stroke - worked wonders for DD1 who is still completely smooth and stylish a year after finishing school lessons.

[Seona1973]

dd is nearly 8 and started lessons at 4 1/2 - she is in the advanced group and can swim at least 200m. They concentrate on front crawl, back crawl and breast stroke and only do a small amount of butterfly. Ds is 4 1/2 and started lessons just before he was 4 - he can do about 7m of messy front crawl now (helped by the 6 lessons he had at swim academy on our recent 2 week holiday in tunisia!)

[Miggsie]

Yes, why do you have to do butterfly before you are allowed to swim an entire length? It's bonkers. I'd rather DD could swim lengths than spend all her time doing 10m butterfly. At least she can do it, two of her class sank trying to do it which must have been terribly disheartening when they are perfectly competent at front crawl.

Our pool offers private lessons and I am thinking of signing DD up to those, and telling them to concentrate on her endurance and stamina and sod the butterfly: only competitive swimmers ever do butterfly.

[Hulababy]

DD stopped at level 5. The swimming pool had to close for several months for emergency repairs and work, so it was kind of forced upon us. She could restart in September but has chosen not too. She can swim well enough to be safe in water and officially if she fell in she could swim well enough to get hersef to the side and out (obviosuly reality is always different). She can tread water for ages too, etc. She has other interests. Swimming lessons isn't something she did for fun particularly, esp at level 5 where it is mainly just swimming lengths. So we have said she can chose not to return. She will still have school swimming lessons for a term each year and will still go swimming (very) occassionally with us for fun and will swim lots on her holidays.

[Katisha]

I jacked it in with DSs after a year of failing to learn to swim when he was 5 or 6.
Eventually he learned in Yr4 at school.
He can swim now.

the lessons were just awful - the heat, the noise, the scummy changing faciilities and the fact that he was getting absolutely nowhere.

[ilovejondanby]

do your swimming pool do the free intensive swimming courses in the summer?

[inthesticks]

I remember that link on MN. I made both boys (then 12 and 14) watch it before we went on holiday last year.

[inthesticks]

My criteria was 100m. Both DSs hated the lessons and I said they could not quit until they had a 100m badge.
It saved me years of tedious lessons when I forked out for one to one lessons.
They learned more in one hour of private tuition than in the previous 3 years of group ones, cost effective in the end.

[GrimmaTheNome]

Here are the rospa guidelines on water safety.

I can't spot anything there about how to attract attention if you're in trouble, but if you're swimming with no extra buoyancy, any sort of waving will tend to make you sink...

Doing watersports the method we've always been told is to wave both arms at once - you can do this if you're on a board or wearing adequate flotation.

[trumpton]

you might like the link repeated

[trumpton]

Bump for you ALL to watch hk78 post. It's chilling but Very Important.