The Importance of Teaching Children to Swim

In the depths of winter, it may seem a little out of place to have kids swimming a high priority, although, come the summer months, it can feel quite natural, even impulsive to think about swimming.

The fact is, in schools learning to swim is now a core element in primary curriculum, and learning to swim and swimming lessons go on all through the year.

In the summer, particularly if there are some high temperatures, there will be reports of fatalities amongst children, who have drowned. Not all because they couldn’t swim perhaps, but some will be.

As a parent, the best you can do is give your child the safest opportunity around water, is to get them swimming. If you don’t know where to start, book your children onto a suitable lesson today.

Swimming is a life skill and something like riding a bike, once learned, never forgotten, and can carry on into elder years.

Almost all kids have some sport interest during their school years, but only swimming has the potential to save a life. They could be cool at netball, or a great footballer, but if they were to fall into a river, or off a quay, there is one sport that they could have learned that would give them a chance of safety.

Swimming is an excellent physical activity which uses pretty much all of the muscles. Once familiarity and confidence in the water happens, then children can exercise themselves by having fun for hours.

If you told them to exercise, the response would be probably negative, but they will happily spend hours running in and out of shallow water beaches, or throwing a ball around a pool.

Swimming is a great no-impact exercise. Unlike running, bowling, kicking etc. swimming does not focus effort on a particular joint, muscle or limb, with 90% of the body weight held in the water in buoyancy, swimming uses all those muscles in smooth succession.

The term “cardio-vascular” is one that kids will be unlikely to have heard of, even less likely to care about, but swimming is a great exercise for hearts and lungs as well limbs.

Swimming is a social activity and good for making friends and just going with friends.

Once the child can swim, a whole new raft of sports opportunities open, such as sailing, canoeing, rowing or kayaking.

It also means the freedom to try diving, snorkelling or even scuba diving.

Most schools give the opportunities to take swimming lessons all through the year, so anytime could well be the right time to start.