Yet many physical education teachers and, above all, swimming instructors think that to teach a child to swim you must start with technical and mechanical procedures… blah blah blah. I won’t go on, because this is all nonsense. And I’m going to show you.
Think about that for a moment. For example, imagine you want to teach your young child to play soccer. Do you start by putting a ball at his feet and teaching him to run, pass, shoot, dodge, dribble and all those things with it? What is not? The first thing we do is play with them, and we release the ball to investigate with the ball, to touch it, to throw it.
And we play a lot of things that don’t look or feel like football. Because the first thing they need to do is familiarize themselves with the environment, get to know their body, experiment and enjoy it. The same happens in swimming: first you have to play with the water and familiarize yourself with the environment, swim and refine the technique and there will be time.
Importance of knowing how to swim
It is overkill to learn how to swim as a child, in my opinion. Children need to know what to do to protect themselves in the aquatic environment. And it’s not like swimming, some people just don’t understand how they want to sell it to us (many, unfortunately).
To protect themselves in an aquatic environment, children must learn to move through water, stay afloat and “breathe.” I put it in quotes because it’s really funny to me when I hear people talk about how important it is to learn to breathe underwater. You see, or now we are turning into amphibians instead of fish.
And I’m not saying that knowing how to swim isn’t important. In fact, I think swimming is very important with lifeguard courses near me .And highly recommended for many reasons. I want to insist that the priority with children is that they handle themselves in the water so that they gain confidence and create the foundations for what are later technical moves in naturally different swimming styles. How natural it is to run or hold the ball when a child is learning to play soccer.
Keys to getting started teaching kids to swim
To introduce children to swimming, you don’t have to take them to any intensive courses if you don’t want to. And if you do, it comes in handy to assess the following points.
A child should be in the water and playing
When you want your child to learn to swim, you must first remember that you must let him play in and with the water . Children need to feel comfortable in the aquatic environment, to think that water is something fun and, above all, something they can master.
But some children are afraid of large or deep pools, even if they wear all kinds of float accessories. That is why if we find fear, it is important to start with shallow pools, so that the child can find security. If they are very young children, you probably won’t have a problem with this.
If a child enjoys laughing and playing freely, splashing and behaving, his motivation to learn to swim increases and the acquisition of basic skills acquired through physical activity facilitates later technical work.
Games should promote the development of basic skills
In addition to making free games, other proposed main games are focused on developing skills and movements that we will do later. We are talking about kicks, all kinds of blows, floats in a horizontal position, turns, jumps, postponements, etc.
Games are a great way for kids to start keeping their heads under water, learn to hold their breath, and learn to coordinate their movements.
And it was time for technical teaching
You can spend months playing with children without feeling the need to start teaching technique. To do this, treat it like a game and go at your own pace.
Don’t betray him!!!!
Never treacherously throw a child into the water, and even less so if it already shows signs of fear. It’s not funny, it’s not effective, it’s not good for anything. And don’t let someone else do it.
And the fear of water will surely pass one day, but the mark you leave on him for doing something so cruel – or allowing them to do it to him – will take its toll.
