When Is the Right Time to Teach Your Child To Swim?

It doesn’t matter if you have a pool at home or you simply love going on holidays to tropical beach resorts, it isn’t long before our young ones start showing interest in the water. Which can make for a worrying time for parents, who are worried about the safety of their kids in the water.

Well, if you are worried, the best way to make pools safe for your children is by enrolling them into swimming lessons with a certified instructor. The problem is, when is the right age for your children to start lessons?

What Age Should Children Start Swimming Lessons?

If you consult the American Academy of Paediatrics, you’ll see that doctors recommend that from the age of four, a child has the mental development to understand and participate in formal swimming lessons. However, that doesn’t mean that you should keep kids away from water until then.

Keeping kids away from the pool in summer can be extremely difficult, especially when you have older children happily swimming. So, it makes sense to enrol children under 4 in informal swimming clubs that are aimed at toddlers. As these lessons will help keep your child safe in the water by teaching them the basics of swimming.

Will Early Swimming Lessons Make Your Child a Better Swimmer?

While early swimming lessons are a wonderful bonding experience for both parents and their kids, it’s important to note that there is no evidence to show that early lessons will make your child a better swimmer faster. In fact, whether your child starts lessons at 2 or 4, they are still likely to develop at the same rate, with most children becoming good swimmers around the ages of 5-6.

What early swimming lessons can do, though, is allow your child to become more relaxed and happier around water. Which means, when their formal lessons do start, they will be less apprehensive.

What Benefits Does Swimming Have for Children?

While we all know that swimming is good for keeping our children’s bodies healthy and fit. You might not realise, though, that swimming actually has a host of other benefits that help our children too:

It Boosts Confidence

When a child is kept away from water, they will naturally come to fear that water. By successfully learning to swim and mastering how to overcome the scariness of water, children benefit from a boost in confidence. Which can help them be confident about other physical activities, such as cycling, which will help in later life.

Improves Brain Development

Studies have shown that when a child exercises, their brain becomes stimulated. This can help a child’s brain develop more, improving intelligence. So, by helping your child to swim, you might just be helping them become a brainiac too!

Helps Combat Stress

True, your child shouldn’t be stressed, however by encouraging swimming throughout their childhood, it will help in later life. As, when the stresses of teenage and adult years occur, they’ll be able to go back to swimming to help relieve that stress and clear their mind.

Develop Social Skills

We often think of swimming as a solo sport, where we swim by ourselves to exercise. However, for kids, swimming lessons help develop social skills as they meet new children to interact with. Swimming can also be incredibly fun, where you can go to waterparks with friends and have a fun time together.

Encouraging your children to swim and take lessons has a host of benefits for both during their childhood and in later life. Just remember that children, especially when younger, should never be left alone while in water for safety.