I am floundering here. I have put my kids into both YMCA and Salvation Army Kroc center swim lessons and they still cannot swim. I am not sure what to do at this point.
We have two girls, ages 6 and 4 and they have stopped making progress and my wife an I are super frustrated. Both my wife and I are adult onset swimmers and we do not have any experience teaching kids how to swim and we cannot ask our parents about it became they basically did nothing.
I am feeling defeated as a dad and don’t want to be to one yelling at them for “not trying hard enough, or being brave enough” to tackle the endeavor of becoming swimmers.
We need advice and help. I would give up a Kona slot for this…its so much work.
Take them to your local Y during the open sessions and just get them in the water. It’s not really about you instructing them, it’s about them getting familiar to the water and comfortable. Just simply work on what they did in the lesson that week.
Weekly swim lessons are only valuable imo when you put them in the water outside of the class because reality is in a 30-50 min lesson they literally are probaly only swimming 8 mins especially if there is a 4-5 person group. Rest of the time they are waiting and likely not using their time the best.
Very important skill to have - concern is warranted. Lessons are a bit of joke - not enough time in the water. Gotta join the local swim club for 4 or so years. Keep it going into mid+ teens if you can.
Some kids burn out a little over the years tho eg my son is only doing a few meets this year and has got back into hockey. Which is great, looks good on the ice too, despite the 4 or 5 years off.
Keep them on a multi-sport diet for fun, fitness lifestyle and personal development imo.
Be patient. Just have the kids go to lessons every year. My kids are 11 now and they can do all strokes and very smooth swimmers. They did the kids Tri when they were 9 and 11 when I did the half the day after.
It needs to be fun for them, which means no pressure from a Dad
If you are a late adult onset swimmers, why do you expect so much of them when they are going to learn years before you did?
The lessons my kind do go to, they don’t allow parents. The parents sit in their cars or in the lobby and this is maybe why. Parents don’t even know what goes on until the last day when they let parents see the progress the last day of every season.
Lessons arent always the best place to learn. I know a few people that were fed up with the price and pace of lessons and decided to put that money into a holiday with a pool… By the end of the vacation thier kids were playing like sea otters
play in the recreation pool more often
youtube swim videos for kids
seeing other kids swim can help
Let them pick out some goggles and togs to make it more fun
Some kids just aren’t sporty (like mine, particularly my daughter) and you have to live with that reality. Just make sure you engage them in activities (particularly physical) they do like.
Encourage them to do lessons, don’t force them.
Bring them to the pool and play around. Give them a reason to want to swim for the love of being in the water, not to make you or anyone else happy.
Where are you trying to get to? Ability to swim for safety (i.e. priority is that they don’t panic in water and can keep themselves afloat), or you want them to be competitive swimmers?
I’ve got a five year old girl who is in swimming lessons and I know what you mean, it’s definitely not linear progress, but every now and again something clicks and they move on to the next skill.
We really struggled for ages as the beast wouldnt even put head under water, but went on holiday to Bali and three weeks of being in the pool 3 x a day, and playing (and mimicing her peers) developed more than the last 6 months.
Now we have 2 lessons a week, and make sure we have a play session with us, sometimes getting her to show us what shes learned, but not pushing it.
Seems to work, but some days are better than others eg: forgets how to kick.
My girl is 9 now. At 6 NOBODY in her class could swim except her. Literally nobody. Even at 7, over 60 percent still could barely swim.
At this age, pool time play is faarrrrrr more useful than lessons. The reason my daughter could swim some and others couldn’t was that she had tons more pool time than anyone else since I took her the the pool for nearly 2 hrs on most weekends for play.
She flat out refused all swim lessons…we forced her once and hated it so much she refused to go back. And I tried to teach her but she hated that too and I gave up and just let her play.
The most common question I got at pool parties is where I took my daughter to learn to swim. But the reality is that time in the pool exceeds.swim.lesson yields by a lot at this age.
Just let then play, it’ll be hard to get them out even after 2 hrs! But yes, it’s a time commitment from the dad. I was the only dad who took my daughter to the pool this much in her entire class.
tried lessons with my 4yo, limited success. Then rented a vacation house for this summer with a pool. jumped in minimum 2 times a day, had pool noodles and lots of floaty toys. he was swimming like a fish before the end of our vacation.
Having taught many a kid to swim the most important things are:
Pool time, not lessons, total pool time
Understanding body position, just get the kids horizontal and it will click, most kids drop their hips, start to sink and can’t recover. If they can’t move around they won’t have fun and won’t have a reason to learn.
A competent instructor. I used to have 6 assistant coaches, I’d trust two with the little ones, the best swimmers weren’t great coaches for under 8 because they didn’t understand why they were good, just sets and the non-year round level swimmers weren’t strong enough to know the nuances. It was either really experienced head coaches or a special middle ground who can really teach
Look for a neighborhood or country club swim league and commit to the idea of 4 to 6 weeks of practically daily practices or meets. Our neighborhood league has the 6 and unders “swimming” 12.5 yard races while the 7/8s and 9/10s swim 25s. Very social and mostly non competitive. The daily practices often result in significant improvements. In addition to starting our kids down the path of competitive swimming they made a lot of friends.
3 kids, 8, 4 and 2. They all started swim lessons around 2. The oldest hated the water from the start. We got one of those cheap above grounds when he was 4. He wouldn’t let go of us in it, even with a bib or floats or whatever on. Took that down the next summer. When he was 6 we got a membership to a pool club. They went nearly every day in the summer and the kids went in the water on their own terms, found friends to play within the shallow pools and started to love it. That summer 6 year old did swim team at the pool club and fell in love with the sport. 2 years later he’s swimming year round on teams and making me look stupid in the water. The 4 year old sees that and joined the swim team at 4 and is a fish. 2 year old sees both of them and goes nuts in the water. I’d say let them swim on their own terms as much as you can. Let the water be fun. Lessons of any type are seen as mandatory requirements even at a young age and can turn them off. At some point it may just click for them, and if one of them (hopefully the older one) gets the bug they both may. Best of luck.
As a youth through college swimmer, I agree with the theme of most of the responses - PLAY. Until 8ish if swimming/water is fun and not a fear / anxiety inducing thing goal achieved. I’d bet most great swimmers loved the water as toddlers (no actual evidence but it makes a lot of sense to me). Also not everyone needs to be a competitive swimmer.
I took them to the pool myself every weekend and let them simply play in the shallow pool. Time and comfort in the water
trust. If your kids have had a bad experience in the water via lessons (I’m sure they have) that can really affect some kids. They’d cling to the instructor (or me) like crazy
I had to tell my kids a thousand times “I will never let you go†— and I never did. They ended up fully trusting me and gradually I would cheer them on and challenge them to do things (I bet you can’t float for 5 seconds!)
It all worked and now my kid is 10 and does lane swimming with me! She wears fins to keep up and it’s awesome!