Parents’ Role in Making a Baby Learn to Swim

Safety & Survival

A core of successful cultivation of swimming skills at an early age is parents’ involvement in swimming lessons. Most swimming instructors agree that for the best results kids under the age of four must be accompanied by adults when they learn to swim. The Seattle area’s abounds in various swimming pools, so there is no problem in finding the one which you can attend together with your child.




Parental involvement in swimming lessons is beneficial for many reasons. They include: fine motor development, child and parent relationship, safe and secure learning environment, parental education and maximum time for practice.




Fine Motor Development
From numerous academic studies and our instructors’ education background, we know that until the age of 4, children don’t possess the fine motor skills necessary to coordinate “conventional swimming”. For better results kids need one-on-one instruction and manipulation. Such instructions and manipulations are best provided by parents. Generally, the children who have their parents involved in the swimming lessons will coordinate better become skillful swimmers long before those do not have such opportunity.




Safe and Secure Learning Environment
One of the greatest causes of accidental deaths among preschool children is drowning. Most of these deaths occur in backyard swimming pools to the children who just begin to learn to swim (WA is one of the leading states in this sad statistics).




Hence it is of particular importance that parents are involved in learning their children to swim, since this way kids learn a cautious approach to the water and get awareness that it is prohibited to swim unless being accompanied by a parent. Adhering to this principle decreases the likelihood for kids getting into hazardous situations.




It should be kept in mind that it is impossible for one adult to adequately supervise numerous children under the age of 4. Hence the early swim lessons which don’t keep one-on-one ratio are potentially dangerous.




Child and Parent Relationship
Swimming is a perfect way for children and parents both to learn to swim and have fun together. For many children it becomes a treat, as they are allocated one-on-one time to play with their parents. Here a magical bond can be established between children and parents as they learn together in the children swimming lessons.




Parental Education
We believe that parents should get profound education on the early learn to swim process. It allows them to become experts in kids swimming. We believe that by giving this knowledge to parents, much better results can eventually be achieved, as parents may practice the skills outside the formal environment of baby swimming lessons.




Maximum Time for Practice
Kids need continual repetition and practice for rapid swimming skills acquisition and general improvement. Getting parents involved, a child receives one-on-one attention and may practice the swimming skills over and over without the need to wait for the attention of one swimming instructor.




Speaking from my own experience, I can say that it is essential for kids to develop the lifesaving skill of learning how to swim because water is unpredictable, and so its life.