It is our job as swimming coaches to ensure that children learn all the necessary skills to become confident and competent swimmers. However, we firmly believe that parents have a key role to play as well; taking your child to swimming for fun is the best thing parents can do to support their progress.
Whether you are taking your little swimmer to a local pool over the weekend or splashing together in a pool at a holiday resort, these ideas we’ve put together might help you to make it fun for everyone in the family.
Talk to the fishes
Practise talking to pretend fishes by getting your child to blow bubbles in the water. Then ask them to put their ear in the water to listen to the pretend response. This is fantastic for breath control, which is the first step in teaching your child to swim independently. Encouragement in submerging their face and blowing bubbles will increase their comfort level in the water.
Red light, green light
Sit your child on a shallow step of the pool. When you say green light, have them kick like crazy! A red light means stop and a yellow light means kick slowly. This is great for learning how to kick in the water. This can also be performed by holding your child under their arms so they are facing you and walk backwards encouraging them to kick.
Taking the plunge
In the shallow end, position yourself away from the wall. Hold onto your child to they are standing on your knees, your hands supporting their waist. Ask them to jump off your knees and grab onto the wall. This technique slowly gets your child used to swimming independently. Gradually increase the distance from the wall and they will progress slowly.
For the older children…
Ping Pong
Buy some ping pong balls and throw them into the pool and watch your kids love racing around trying to capture them all.
Diving for treasure
Throw some change into the pool and get your kids to pick up the coins from the bottom of the pool. A new way to earn their pocket money on holiday!
Quick jump quiz
One person asks the questions while the other children line up at the deep end. The person asks a question such as ‘what colour is the sky’ and the jumper needs to answer the question while in the air but before they hit the water.
Shark Attack
One person is the shark and everyone else is the fish. When the shark shouts ‘shark’, the fish swim off. Once they have escaped, the shark shouts ‘shark’ and tries to catch one. As soon as a fish has been caught, they become the shark.
For more information about our swim programme and to find out times and prices, call us on 0208 940 9431 or email contact@sportsgeneration.co.uk