We all want our children to not be afraid of water and to learn to swim early, not only for their safety but also for their enjoyment. This is why swimming lessons are growing more and more popular. Not everyone can afford swimming lessons for their children or after reading this post, you may not want to take the lesson route.
How to Teach Your Child to Swim Without Lessons
These steps work and they are so much fun to do with your child,
who will trust you more than they would a stranger, which is why I believe they
make a lot of sense.
You Teach Your Child to Fear or Love the Water
The first thing that I realized when our youngest was a
newborn was that my reactions when my children were in water was what turned
them into fearing water. Babies are not born afraid of water, as it is a
natural feeling for them and it is proven that babies can easily hold their
breath underwater and can even swim.
This is when I realized that my reaction of when water was
on my children’s face, when they slipped underwater in the tub, or when they
were splashed and didn’t realize it was coming was all creating a reaction in
their own mind that water was to be feared.
I avoided this reaction with our youngest and he was the
first that loved to be in the water. He never cried when he slipped in the tub, but
would rather clap his hands with me, as I praised him that he was learning ‘how
to swim’ like a big boy. He loved to have water poured over his head and loved
to splash in the water and be splashed.
So the first step to teaching your child to learn to swim is
to help them love the water.
If they already have a fear of water, you will need to work
harder but you can still do it. I know because our older three had fear and all
of them are excellent swimmers.
Make Water Activities Fun
Give your children time to play and learn to enjoy the water but
giving them a lot of time to play during their bath time. At a young age turn
their small pool
into a fun learning place that will make them see that water can be
fun and not scary, even if they already have a level of fear, they will learn
to relax with the destruction of playthings in their pool.
As they begin to get more comfortable, increase the amount
of water in their little pool.
Many children do not like water in their ears, which can
lead to painful swimmers ear. These Ear Band-It work for all ages, and increase the fun in
water without the risk of ear pain later.
Equip Your Child With Flotation
There are a lot of products on the market that are for
flotation, but there is only one that I feel will help your child learn to
relax and enjoy the water, and learn the true buoyancy of the water and that is
the Puddle Jumper.
This one flotation device that is approved is the only thing that I know made the biggest difference for our
youngest child.
My favorite thing about the Puddle Jumper life jacket is
that it will roll a child over, eliminating the face-down dangers of many of
the other flotation devices on the market. However, when a child first wears
this, they must learn how to ‘balance’ themselves in the water with this
device. This step doesn’t take long to master, as long as you give your child
the space to learn it and that means ‘letting go of them’ while they are in the
water.
Once a child learns the skill of keeping up right in the water, the puddle jumper will give them the confidence to do what kids do best… imitate others. They will begin to kick their feet and move their arms, to try to be like the swimmers around them.
Demonstrate the Difference Without Flotation
The Puddle
Jumper grows a child’s confidence so quickly that they will believe
they can swim, even without it. It is very important for the child to
understand that the buoyancy is coming from the device and not their skills,
which is a great time to start training some of those necessary ‘swimming
skills’.
During this phase for our son, we would go in the 2 foot
area of our local pool and take off the Puddle Jumper to let him practice some
of the arm and kicking that he would do with it on.
One time, we didn’t say anything and just watched him. This
time, he just acted like it was on and went under the water. He quickly came up
with a shocked look on his face and we were all clapping and cheering that he
was starting to swim.
That was the day we started his lessons.
Teach Them to Hold Their Breathe
When starting focused lessons, I would suggest starting
with learning how to hold their breathe. This is a picture of my four year old,
when he was learning to swim.
- Blow
bubbles in the water – We would often have fun with blowing
bubbles at the surface of the water, just to get our child use to have at
least their chin in the water with an activity that can be fun for you to
do together. You do this by vibrating your lips together to make a
motorcycle type of a sound. The water will move with this action and the
child will love it.
- Blow
in the face of your child – Teaching your child how to hold their
breath without having to physically close their nose is as easy as blowing
in their face. If you child is younger or not afraid of the water, you can
even put them under the water after blowing in their face, as the natural
reaction is to hold their breathe. This method is a great way for them to
learn to do this on their own when water comes close to their face.
- Holding
their nose – Of course, if you child is older and already dealing
with fear about water, the trick of holding their nose closed with their
hand. They can practice this by putting as much of their face as they
prefer under the water.
- Jumping
into the water from the side of the pool – The Puddle Jumper is a
great flotation for a child to learn how to jump into the pool and it can
serve as a told to teaching them to hold their breathe because in our
experience, our son held his breathe each time he jumped into the water,
and he would go completely under the water and then the flotation brought
him up quickly.
Lesson Time for Swimming
Once your child has these key things learned, it is time to
focus on actually teaching swimming. Remember that children are natural
imitators and why not use that as part of your swimming lessons. Have
older children, who know how to swim already, and avoid being surrounded
by non-swimmers or children afraid of the water, because children are natural
imitators and this can be what they choose to imitate versus the swimmers.
During these lessons, you will want to put the Puddle Jumper away.
The only thing you will really need is a pool that is either
at the level of the child’s upper chest/chin or just over their head, but not
over their head.
Start with ‘baby steps’ by having them hold on the wall or
another person and swim to you any way they can. This should be really close at
first and the more the confidence grows the further distance you can provide.
You will want to focus on helping them learn better ways of
swimming, like kicking their feet and moving their arms in the water.
Make these lessons fun and don’t make them too long.
If you are going to be in the water for 1 hour, have the first 5-10 minutes of fun, then turn in the next 5 minutes working on kicking while the child swims to you. Then have them swim back to the wall or the person helping you. Repeat this for that time period.
Then go back to having fun.
Next, work on going under the water to swim with kicking
(building on what you already focused on) for 5 minutes. Enjoy the pool for
another 5-10 minutes.
Then come back and work on the arm movements for 5 minutes,
moving back further (providing more space between you and the learner) to see
how the first two lessons are helping.
Always make the lessons fun and try to stretch your child
to push themselves just a little more than what they did the last time. Have
them look back to see how much they did and celebrate together.
I hope these tips give you the confidence and ideas to teaching your child to swim without lessons.
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