We begin our parent and child swimming classes with babies as young as 6 months old.  There are many benefits that babies receive during these lessons.  Babies less than a year old accept the water more readily than older children.  Fear or anxiety about water is acquired as children grow older.  The longer the baby is kept away from water, the more likely the child will develop this fear or anxiety.

Infants are well adapted to swimming.  When they are submerged they automatically hold their breath and make swimming movements.  These reflex behaviors begin to fade as early as 5 months and must be renewed with practice.  Babies can exercise more muscles in the water than on land.  They are less restricted by gravity and their inability to sit or stand when they are in the water.  This increased strength often translates into early acquisition of physical skills.

Early mastery of water movement has shown to provide babies a head start in learning basic swimming skills.  Water helps improve coordination and balance by allowing babies to move bilaterally to maintain their equilibrium.  Warm water, combined with excercise, relaxes and stimulates babies’ appetites.  They usually sleep better on swimming days.  Babies flourish in the focused attention their parents lavish on them during swimming.

Parents often confess that the baby swim lessons provide some of the little time they can spend pleasureable, uniterrupted minutes with their babies.

Everybody needs a little dose of encouragement from time-to-time.  There will be moments when your child feels frustrated with their swimming progress.  They may say that they are bored or that they are doing the same things again and again.  This happens more in advanced classes as children are learning more of the finer points of swim technique.  As the child progresses in his/her lessons, the pace of the classes starts to slow a little as skills are refined.

Definitely, let your deck manager know if your child is bored or frustrated as there are things we can do in the lessons to better encourage your children.  Also, your deck manager can explain what skills are being worked on and what skills are still needed to pass to the next level.

It is not unusual for children to become bored or frustrated and it’s important at these times to offer your child understanding and encouragement.  Point out to them that learning to swim is like learning to ride a bike.  Remind your child how it what it was like when they learned to ride their bike, and how hard that may have been.  Remind them that after lots of practice they did learn to ride and it’s now lots of fun to ride their bike. Just like riding a bike, with lots of practice and time in the water, they will soon be swimming and having lots of fun in the pool.

Success breeds success and praising your child’s efforts will help build self-confidence and the desire to learn.  Celebrate the small victories.

It is not unusual for a child to cry at swim lessons.  For some of our students this may the first time they have taken a class away from their parents.  It may also be the first time the child has been in the water.

Consider the swim lesson from the child’s point of view.  He or she is in a new place and has a class with an unfamiliar instructor.  With this in mind, our instructors understand the nature of a child’s fear.  The instructor will then work to gain the trust of the child and use a variety of techniques to engage your child.

Our instructors will help your child conquer the fear.  Many times a simple reassurance makes all the difference.