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At What Age Should Your Child Be Learning to Swim? - part 1
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Articles In This Section:· At What Age Should Your Child Be Learning to Swim? - part 1 · At What Age Should Your Child Be Learning to Swim? - part 2 · At What Age Should Your Child Be Learning to Swim? - part 3 · Are You Qualified to Teach Others to Swim—Even With the Help of These Lessons? · Specific Pointers About Entering the Pool, Pool Temperature, and the Weather
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You, of course, are aware that even with a wonderful
teacher who has worked out a perfect plan and Who has infinite patience, some people—especially little people of three
or four years—do not feel easy in the water. Others hardly
need a teacher; they plunge right in and are soon learning by
imitating others. But for those who have an unexplainable
fear, something can be done to overcome this fear. What this
something is will become clear in the following pages. When
these fearful ones begin to feel buoyant and confident, the
transformation from misery to joy is a pleasure to behold.
It cannot be emphasized too strongly that excessive cautiousness or fear in the child should be respected. Water is a mysterious medium at first. Try to remember back to when you were learning to swim—the feeling of floundering helplessness when you did not find the bottom at the moment you expected it and gulped water instead of air. One parent may feel that his four-year-old is experiencing difficulties because he did not get him started earlier, before the child became so conscious of his fears. Another parent may think that a four-year-old is too young and that the solution is just to wait until he "grows out" of these fears. How, then, do you determine when your child is ready to learn to swim? In one fairly typical group of four-year-old children just starting their lessons, here are the individual reactions which were observed: One child walked into the pool and you could tell by the way his face lit up that he was going to enjoy the water. He walked confidently back and forth holding on to the railing, eager to find out what he should do first. The second child approached the water in a manner similar to that of the first child, only the minute he tried to walk into water up to his waist, his expression changed and he looked as though he wished he hadn't come. He needed quick reassurance that walking in water is different from walking on land. He needed the teacher to take his hand for more than bodily support. The third child immersed his foot and that was enough. It was wet! The pool looked too big, the teacher too new, his companions too brave. "It's cold," he yelled and retreated. The teacher would have been wasting her words yelling back, "The water's warm." Instead, she suggested that he sit on the side and watch. The fourth child didn't even try the step. He hadn't wanted to take swimming lessons in the first place. It was his mother's idea. Now, what happened to these children? The first child listened to, and imitated, the teacher. He got to the point in the first lesson where his whole face was immersed; although he had not wanted to do this, it was not difficult to persuade him. The teacher assured him he would soon be a fish, and he was proud of himself. The next day, putting his head under water seemed less difficult, and the third day he was submerged almost all of the time. He followed the lesson plans, and at the end of ten lessons, he was swimming and diving in the deep end of the pool.
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