Teaching Your Child To Swim Safely
Having a child that can swim safely helps to greatly reduce the risk of drowning and takes a lot of worries away from your life as a parent. And while learning to swim can be exciting and fun for a child, it can be a stressful anxiety-driven experience for parents. So just how can you introduce your child to the water in a fun, but safe way? Let’s take a closer look:
Invest in formal lessons
When teaching a child to swim, its
important to invest informal lessons. Accredited teachers will have all the
necessary safety protocols in place and follow strict guidelines enforced upon
them by the local authorities. Good swim schools will have firm
safety rules in place which they go over with children and their parents
before each lesson. These rules provide a solid grounding for understanding the
dangers of water and reinforcing in children when they should or shouldn’t
approach the water.
Start off young
While babies can go into the water from
birth, they can’t regulate their body temperature yet so tend to get cold very
quickly. Babies can be introduced to the water from as young as four months
old, but most swimming instructors prefer to take them from the age of six
months. At this age, they will also be more resilient to any infections that
they could pick up in the pool.
Prior to this, you can start to introduce
water to your child by pouring a small warm cup of water over their head during
bath time. This will get your child used to the feeling of water over their
face. This experience should always be done in a calm and positive manner. If
your child responds negatively then it is best to give it a rest as you could
end up creating a phobia in your child.
Make water fun
One of the hampers to teaching your kid to swim can actually be your child. Some children are afraid of water, scared of the
teacher, or simply don’t want to swim. If this is the case, it's important to
make water fun. Start off slow, just allowing your child to dip their toes in
the water when visiting a park, or have the water run over
their head, before introducing their whole body to the pool. You can also make
bath time a fun environment through the introduction of toys and bubbles.
Perhaps you can even let your children were their goggles and armbands in the bath
or the shower? Getting a child more familiar with water will help make the
learning to swim process easier and more manageable.
Children should always be encouraged to
splash in the pool as this also helps them get used to the resistance of water,
however, this too needs to be done in a controlled manner so that you do not
confuse distress with having fun. It’s also a good idea not
to waste too much water, as this can lead to bad habits.
Watch them at all times
Children are very curious and can end up putting themselves in potentially dangerous situations unknowingly. Kids should always be watched around water, even shallow rivers and streams could lead to drowning. Rather keep them inside when you want to find out more about having fun without any risks. At home, pool covers are a good investment, as are fences that keep your kids away from the pool in the first place.
