My daughter finished her first kids triathlon… 100 meter swim + additional 30 meters to swim to the beach. She did the bike and then ran a 4:50 half mile. Very Proud of her!
She does what it takes to swim: combination of backstroke, pulling, some scissor kicking, and some sinking(up/down).
Starting small: trying to teach her to kick on a kick board just isn’t working. We’ve tried swimming lessons with her only to see it was a waist of money.
So I need to teach her, but not sure how to get her to listen, hold on to the kick board and kick a certain way. ??
Maybe I should start somewhere else. ??
For the most part she has spaghetti arms too.
And then on top of all this I have to make this fun or she’ll lose interest.
I have tried using leverage like candy… hasn’t helped.
I taught my daughter at that age. She wanted to be able to go into the lap pool with me so she asked to learn. I would have her hang onto the gutter and kick with her face in the water. It really got her comfortable being in that position and learning to turn her head to breathe instead of picking it up.
She loved it, I would go under water and make silly faces or time her to see how long she went for etc.
After she got that down we worked on her stroke.
Then She made up a game where she would roll dice on the edge of the pool and do that many lengths. She was hooked. Now shes 15 and a varsity swimmer. She can kick my ass and make me look like an idiot in a race I love it!
Eta: make it fun. At that age if they arent having fun, they wont do it.
Kids love to be with other kids, and in general (there are exceptions), don’t like their parents to teach them stuff (not their role, they’re just there for love and support).
How long have you tried the swimming lessons, how many kids were in the class together, what was the program?
Since coming to Australia two years ago, my kids who could not swim at all are now both (6 and 9) swimming great, all 4 strokes for my 9 yo boy. It’s just that you need to find the right program, where they have a method for teaching in place, and stick to it, and don’t have more than 4 or 5 kids per instructor at the same time. Also, twice a week is much better than only once. Finally, there will be times when they don’t progress much (it doesn’t seem like it anyway), but they then have big jumps suddenly as they needed time to process all this and apply it correctly.
Also, it helps that my kids are the kind to just listen, and apply carefully after. Other kids who have very short attention span, take more time to learn. And some day their attitude will change (they grow up basically) and they make a big jump then.
Finally, like i said above, one of the big motivations for kids to do something, especially sport, is to be with their friends, or at east other kids their age. For this reason alone I would really try to find a good learn to swim program instead of teaching them myself (and I was a swim coach back in Switzerland). They don’t want me to teach them anyway, not my role apparently :-).
I’m sorry, but it’s too late–you should’ve started when she was 3. Just kidding…sort of…
I agree about making it fun. Ideally put her in a pool with other kids and have them play games that require swimming–even if it’s just 20 feet at a time–like a game of tag, or chase the ball, or whatever.
She’ll swim without thinking of it as “swimming,” and hopefully get better and more interested in it along the way.
I’ve taught hundreds and hundreds of kids how to swim. Group lessons at that age are where it’s at. Mom and dad are the worst teachers. I kept the groups around 5 or 6 kids, keep the time spent on any one activity pretty short, and make everything you can into a game. I found that many kids would really look up to their swim teacher and the lifeguards and therefore put forth good effort.
When it came to my daughter, I nailed it. With my son, ive been less successful and cant get him to not be scared of the water despite showing him countless times that if I shove his face in it for less than a minute that he wont drown.
It’s gotta be fun. kids love to learn in a fun environment and that generally means with other kids around.
swim instructors are professionals. they learn how to swim, and learn how to teach. (OK so the teenager teaching your 5 year old isn’t a world beater, but they are better at it than you!) let them do it
Kids rarely learn from their parents in those kinds of situations. It’s the same as never teach your girlfriend to drive. I was a ski pro years ago. One of my students ended up becoming my wife. After the first time we slept togther, she stopped listening to me. I put her in classes with other instructors because she’d listen to them, and she was a grown up. Kids are worse)
To learn how to swim, kids or adults, the only way is to be comfortable in the water. Most adults will say they are comfortable in the water, but they ain’t. Kids are worse. They won’t learn a thing unless they are comfortable. Goofing around in the water, with silly games is the best way to get comfortable in the water. They might not seem like they are learning anything about swimming, but they are getting to grips with the first rung of the ladder…comfort in the water. Once they are comfortable in the water over their depth, THEN the swimming stuff can start being taught.
Spend time at a water park, just goofin’ around in water. Move to the wave pool, eventually getting them over their depth. Then it’s baby steps on the way to swimming.
Remember you couldn’t swim worth shit when you were 5 so they won’t be either. Swimming takes time. It’s a completely un-natural thing for humans to do. It take ages to get it to feel natural.
The group lessons probably looked like a waste of money, but were probably useful.
My boy is 5 . He does group lessons once a week and we go to the pool together at least one day over the weekend. Our deal is that he works with me on his swimming for at least 10 minutes and then we can go play. Seems to work pretty good as extra practice/reinforcement, but I would never try to be his primary instructor. And I am a former swimmer, coach and instructor.
As for practical advice, kick boards can be tough for little kids to handle. Holding not the wall is good. if they have those foam barbell looking things those generally are better than kick boards.
Be patient. Learning to swim properly is difficult.
Stop being so pushy at 5 she doesn’t need to swim freestyle; she needs to have fun in the water.
Use a foam noodle instead of a kickboard.
Start with doggie paddle.
Breaststroke, or “frog swim” (my term when I was younger) was fine.
So is elementary backstroke.
The best thing you can do is just spend lots of time in the water. It does not have to be lessons - just play time.
You might try to find a HS kid on the swim team to teach her… little kids love older kids (and vice versa).
FWIW, the candy incentive worked for me - sort of - my mom would get me a chocolate glazed dunkin munchkin when I did a good job at swim lessons. To this day I crave chocolate glazed donuts after I swim.
Second tridork… (Look for progression based group lessons, such as a “Swim America” program. A flow chart skills progession system - fundamental skills laid upon fundamental skills. I have watched beautiful effective strokes built this way. Our children learned this way and could come out of the water first pack in pretty much all but an ITU pack. DavidK)
It’s gotta be fun. kids love to learn in a fun environment and that generally means with other kids around.
swim instructors are professionals. they learn how to swim, and learn how to teach. (OK so the teenager teaching your 5 year old isn’t a world beater, but they are better at it than you!) let them do it
Kids rarely learn from their parents in those kinds of situations. It’s the same as never teach your girlfriend to drive. I was a ski pro years ago. One of my students ended up becoming my wife. After the first time we slept togther, she stopped listening to me. I put her in classes with other instructors because she’d listen to them, and she was a grown up. Kids are worse)
To learn how to swim, kids or adults, the only way is to be comfortable in the water. Most adults will say they are comfortable in the water, but they ain’t. Kids are worse. They won’t learn a thing unless they are comfortable. Goofing around in the water, with silly games is the best way to get comfortable in the water. They might not seem like they are learning anything about swimming, but they are getting to grips with the first rung of the ladder…comfort in the water. Once they are comfortable in the water over their depth, THEN the swimming stuff can start being taught.
Spend time at a water park, just goofin’ around in water. Move to the wave pool, eventually getting them over their depth. Then it’s baby steps on the way to swimming.
Remember you couldn’t swim worth shit when you were 5 so they won’t be either. Swimming takes time. It’s a completely un-natural thing for humans to do. It take ages to get it to feel natural.
I’d do once a week group swim lessons, then once a week private swim lessons. Make sure it’s fun. I’ve rarely heard good things about parents teaching their kids to swim.
I think kids learn best from just being in the water and testing their limits on their own, with your help. But most of all, as you’ve read here, it has to be FUN. If an activity is correlated with being fun, not work, they’ll be more committed to participating in it.
Example… my dad swam competitively in college for a Div 1 program in the 60’s. He taught my sister and brother to swim. They had no interest in taking it competitively. He didn’t teach me to swim, I took lessons. I was always a little anxious about swimming and so I never swam competitively until high school… but I did get into comp. swimming unlike my siblings. So there’s one example.
Nudging kids to try new thing and challenge themselves is a fine line over pushing them into something and having them long term not enjoy it.
On a side note, I think doing more than 2 activities at the same time is also asking for trouble. We have our daughter doing dance and swim lessons. She LOVES swimming and is losing interest in dance. We’re starting her on soccer now too, and will drop dance at the end of the session in May. She’s really excited about soccer. Why? #1, her friends are playing it and she’s extremely sociable. #2 She likes to run and is very competitive. She’s also a very sore loser… so we’ll have to work on that.
This summer, sign her up for a rec summer league swim team. Drop her off at practice on Monday morning. By Friday she’ll have a decent freestyle. By the end of the summer, she’ll actually be kind of fast too, at least for a 25.
Who knows where she’ll go from there but I guarantee you if she sticks it out for the summer she will have a blast. Eventually many kids drift away from swimming as a competitive sport as it gets harder but the under 10 crowds on summer league teams are about the happiest groups of kids you will ever see. Its a rockin’ party most of the time.
This summer, sign her up for a rec summer league swim team. Drop her off at practice on Monday morning. By Friday she’ll have a decent freestyle. By the end of the summer, she’ll actually be kind of fast too, at least for a 25.
Who knows where she’ll go from there but I guarantee you if she sticks it out for the summer she will have a blast. Eventually many kids drift away from swimming as a competitive sport as it gets harder but the under 10 crowds on summer league teams are about the happiest groups of kids you will ever see. Its a rockin’ party most of the time.
On a related question… how well do they need to swim to be on a summer club team?
Right now my daughter is just starting to use her arms but she’ll put her head down and kick for 8-10 yard and pop-up once or twice for a breath. She doesn’t doggie paddle… which I’m actually very happy about because it seems like that creates bad body position habits (head up, legs down) I’m glad we ditched the floatie as soon as possible. She’s just doing Saturday lesson, plus we get to the pool 1-2 other times per week for open swim.
how well do they need to swim to be on a summer club team?
I believe they need to be able to do 1-2 lengths comfortably on their front and on their back for most programs, but it does vary by program. Best bet is to check with the local clubs.
Absolute second the summer swim league suggestion!
Our neighborhood summer swim team has had kids ranging from absolute “wall huggers” to age group state champions. Summer swim team was the motivator/genesis for my kids’ swimming careers.
When it came to my daughter, I nailed it. With my son, ive been less successful and cant get him to not be scared of the water despite showing him** countless times that if I shove his face in it** for less than a minute that he wont drown.
I think I have an idea of why he doesn’t like it…/sortapink
We have a 5 yr old and twin 3 year olds and the group lessons have been good, but it didn’t help my 5 yr old get more comfortable going under water. He wouldn’t do 1 “bob”.
What I did was fill the bathtub a bit deeper than normal and have him practice in there since he was comfortable in the tub. I would then lean over the edge of the tub and stick my whole head under the water to show him it was ok. We then had a contest to see who could get their head closest to the bottom of the tub.
I’m sure I looked like an idiot, but he loves to be better than his dad and it made it fun for him.
Within a week he did 10 bobs in a row and moved up a level to learning how to float. A bonus is both of the twins saw us doing this and love bobbing their heads under water now so they get a head start.
Does no one just carry their young child to edge of a dock and throw them in anymore? No wonder kids are growing up soft! =)
Nice!
Actually my daughters favorite thing right now if for me to throw her as high and far as I can (fortunately she’s only 35lbs) and she sinks to the 4’ bottom of the shallow end, pops up and swims back to me. The funny thing is that I would have hated that type of thing when I was little. To scared to be thrown.
My daughter finished her first kids triathlon… 100 meter swim + additional 30 meters to swim to the beach. She did the bike and then ran a 4:50 half mile. Very Proud of her!
She does what it takes to swim: combination of backstroke, pulling, some scissor kicking, and some sinking(up/down).
Starting small: trying to teach her to kick on a kick board just isn’t working. We’ve tried swimming lessons with her only to see it was a waist of money.
So I need to teach her, but not sure how to get her to listen, hold on to the kick board and kick a certain way. ??
Maybe I should start somewhere else. ??
For the most part she has spaghetti arms too.
And then on top of all this I have to make this fun or she’ll lose interest.
I have tried using leverage like candy… hasn’t helped.
Things that work, would be much appreciated! thx
I tought both of my kids how to swim freestyle…Son at about 4 daughter just recently around age 5…I followed a lot of the advice on here with respect to spending a lot of time in the pool just playing and having fun…
I did do some structured things with them but followed the these guidlines:
Kept it extremely short - like 10 mins
Let them plan their own workout ahead of time so they knew exactly where the stopping point was (and they liked doing this because everyone likes to feel empowered)…I am usually in the water so I let them coach me and tell me what to do…they like this:)
Picked 1 thing or 2 things that were easy for them to focus on (no over coaching)…if you can’t tell them what to do in a sentance or less you are doing to much
I always had them do this with fins on, so it was never a struggle (actual workout)
Focus was always on attitude and learning, and Never on performance or going over time trying to perfect anything…
Because we spend a lot of time just playing in the water especially in the spring and summer this really represented a small fraction of time in the water…We might be at the pool 4 or 5 times (nice outdoor pool in the summer) a week and we would do this 1 time a week (maybe)…
My kids seem to enjoy when I play with them (and coach them, not formally)…coach them in the aspect of try and do this, and a lot of times I am in the water with them…same with all the sports they play…They like when I play with them, but like most kids are NOT receptive to a lot of talking, mental training, or analysis…
I would just do 25’s with a lot of rest and have them kick on there back, side, and stomach (body position)…then do some catch-up with a kick board out in front of them…Then remove the kickboard…
Now they swim with a team 2 times per week 1/2 the year and love it…
My motives have been to use these opportunities to engage with my kids and spend time with them.
I love it!