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MistyMountain
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There have been other threads about whether or not kids can swim and how for some people it is something that was a priority. I am finally in a place where we can take the kids swimming more often and get help with lessons but progress is not very good with lessons and I cannot swim good myself so refining strokes is something I cannot really do.

 

My kids were in daily lessons for one month this summer. None of them even moved up one swim level. My oldest kid actually typically picks up motor skills quickly like when she did gymnastics or martial arts etc. We taught her to swim in one day this spring then she picked up freestyle and backstroke in a day too. She was older. In lessons they have them swim on their side a bit with freestyle and she just needs to improve that but they barely even mention it never mind actually show her what it should look like and what she needs to fix. My middle child was swimming but with no refinement or strokes. He can now kick better but he needs to learn to glide along on his back. Every once in a while they will have him try on his own but when it is not working they just grab him again and pull him along rather then saying lift here, take a deep breath etc. He says they never even talk to him with advice.

 

My youngest can completely submerge but will not really give floating especially front floating a try. She never lets them let go. She will let them hold her for a back float but not let go. She is the oldest left by far in her level. Most move on fast. When I hold her I can actually feel her float but she does not want you to let go. She has motor planning issues that will make the strokes harder where she may need someone to motor plan for her but things like floating and gliding she should be able to do.

 

The lessons were mostly taught by teens on the swim team. They have a good system where they break things down into lots of levels and move you on once you learn the skills but they are not really showing how to do what they are missing.

 

I saw there were others in a similar boat with lots of lessons and practice that was going nowhere. I would like some commiseration or advice on wanting kids to learn better then you were taught.

Edited by MistyMountain
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It sounds like the instructors at that pool aren't the best.  For your middle child and your older child, I wonder if a summer swim team (next summer) or a stroke/turn clinic would work.  Or maybe try swim lessons with a different instructor.

Your youngest sounds like she would benefit from playtime in the water, with some older/more skilled swimmers to model from and to motivate her to try new things.  

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Teaching children to swim is quite challenging, and children progress at very different rates. The MOST important aspect of swimming lessons is safety, though. Children can go under and struggle in a lesson right in front of a teacher, so ensuring a child's safety and security in the water needs to be the priority. It's a really delicate and difficult challenge to get certain children confident enough to float and glide on their own. Getting to the point of them being comfortable enough to be let go of physically can take weeks or months. Sometimes it happens suddenly, and some summers I've had a student never get to that point. I did notice that older beginners would often have more angst in the water. I would do my best to provide many, many different games and tools to help them reach a level of comfort in the water so they could float and glide, but there is no magic button to push. You have to just be patient, and provide the opportunities to learn in a positive environment.

 

I'd recommend that you be patient and keep going with frequent lessons. It's a process learning to swim that takes years. You are doing a great thing, and just keep at it. 

Edited by wintermom
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You could ask what kind of training the swim team members receive in order to become swimming instructors. In Canada, there is a rigorous instructor training requirement, but having experience teaching children of all levels and ages is really valuable as well. You may want to invest in a few private or semi-private lessons from an older, experienced teacher. Your dc may just need a little extra personal touch to help them make some important break throughs.

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Yes my youngest will be the hardest and really there is only do much you can do. It is part needing to get comfortable and part stubbornness and not liking being given instructions. It is hard to take her swimming because she only will go in the 2 foot and under section and the other two need or want to go in either the deep section or the section a little over 3 feet.

 

There used to be a swim team where all you needed was the two strokes and to swim across the pool and they teach everything else you need or swim teams where you just need to swim across the pool even but now all the teams they need to have all four strokes really refined and for long distances not just one lap at a time. I think an adult helping more and the longer practices of a swim team would be helpful. My oldest wants to be able to join the swim team and it seems like a close social community but she needs a little help to get there.

Edited by MistyMountain
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That sounds frustrating. I think the instructor(s) are not offering what you need (whether or not they are doing their job, I don't know. Maybe there is a manager you can discuss this with if you return).

 

I've been looking at options. I just saw one posting for classes a healthplex that says Red Cross lessons but I got discouraged because they broke them up into so many levels that it sounds like you learn to blow bubbles and something else minor in class 1 lol. I was like uhhh...

 

I'm going to see if there's any way we can carve a chunk of time out next summer to get to a pool while we're visiting family. I'm also keeping the swim school in the back of my mind. Both the Red Cross and the swim school place charge roughly $20/30 min. I don't know if that's normal or not, but seems a bit expensive.

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Wish I knew.  My kids still can't get past the "get your face wet" part.  They have both been in lessons for more than one session.  One of mine was asked to leave the last time because he wouldn't do anything they asked him to do. 

 

I work with them when we go, but we don't swim very often because we don't have many opportunities to do so. 

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They are almost 7, 9 and 11. We have access to open swim at the municipal pool but it is not for hours and a bit crowded in the more shallow spots.

Get a private swimming coach who is willing to teach at the municipal pool. The swimming coach my brother and I had are full time lifeguards and coach school teams (elementary to high school level) when off duty.

 

I have school mates who were winning regionals but they can't teach. It is like my husband and I being good at math and science does not make any of us a good math and science tutor. The experienced swim coaches know how to cajole water phobic kids like my DS12 and me who hate getting our faces wet. They also know how to correct strokes and swimming posture. On top of that they teach diving off a 3m/10feet high board too as well as diving off the starting block. The swimming coaches I had could coach and administer the lifeguard test as well.

Edited by Arcadia
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I may have mentioned this in another thread, but we have used uswim.com. Gave me a good idea of how/what to teach and the baby steps it takes to get there. 

 

I have also googled swim stroke videos to show DS when I'm trying to encourage him towards a new skill.

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Yeah, it doesn't sound like a good instructor. When I teach daily lessons in summer sessions I can usually get typical kids to progress at least one, possibly two, maybe even three levels in that time. Class size may be a factor, but there would still be progress. Some instructors have no understanding of teaching progressions and don't make plans to present organized lessons. Most facilities have a mix of good and not so good instructors.

 

This week I've been spending all week training new instructors to pass the certification exam. What often happens is a person gets the certification and the management just turns them loose teaching whatever group lessons they offer. In that situation it's a real crap shoot who turns out good and bad. A good facility will do further training/shadowing before giving the new instructor their own lessons.

 

BTW I don't think being young makes a bad instructor. I know quite a few teens who were good from the start. They took the job seriously. They wanted to learn more about all aspects of swimming and figure out how to apply new info to their lessons. You can see the excitement in their approach.

 

There are people young and old who see teaching swimming as some sort of filler and don't do much beyond show up and just run the kids through random activities.

 

Try to figure out who is competent at your facility. Ask your neighbors, coop friends, church friends, etc who taught their DC.

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I might look at private instructors. It normally would not be in our budget especially this year with the medical costs we incurred but maybe even one session would help get some progress and we do get some homeschooling funds for extra curriculars. There is an older guy I see at the municipal pool giving private lessons that is a lifeguard who seems to be good. There is another lifeguard who will give advice when he sees her at the pool and is very nice.

 

The instructors are nice kids who are very good swimmers but I think that almost can make it harder to teach when it comes so naturally. I do feel like after all those lessons for my typical kids with no motor challenges there should have been some progress with at least one swim level. I did just find some videos of the skill she was missing and it requires a little different kicking technique then the stroke itself but nobody has even showed this it mentioned it to her. That is just a little frustrating.

 

These lessons are broken up in lots of little levels with bubbles being level 1 but I thought that would help with getting the little skills they need to move on but that is not what is happening. The other lessons we could get are less broken up but they occur at different times for different levels and that does not really work.

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What kicking techniques are your dc required to do? Whip kick is notorious for being very challenging to learn properly. Then again, some children do it naturally, but can't do flutter kick. Dolphin kick is another very difficult kick to master. All these kicks look pretty simple from land, but getting them to function effectively in the water is not easy. It takes a whole lot of body awareness that many children don't have, especially when they are more concerned with getting air into their lungs, staying ahead of the person swimming behind them, or trying to avoid crashing into people coming toward them. The physical space that classes have to work with in the pool is often crowded, which is another reason why private lessons can be more effective.

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I loved our swim team coaches to itty bitty pieces, but only a couple of them were really good TEACHERS.  My kid could swim OK before he got to the swim team level, and his teacher was fantastic--a pre-med student, of all things.  But she was a wonderful *teacher*--she might not have been the fastest swimmer of all time, but that didn't matter.  

 

When my son ran into difficulties with a particular stroke, I would hire one of the two coaches who were good *teachers* and they made a lot of progress with him on a 1:1 level in just an hour.  It was less expensive and less time consuming than signing up for advanced classes, and swim team was free as part of our club dues, so it made sense in our case.

 

I'd watch and see which instructors are good teachers and hire one of them for a few private lessons.  

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I posted on the other thread about lessons at the Y. I didn't mention that my kids also took free (to members) lessons at our local pool club. Y lessons were exponentially better. My kids were also on pool club swim team -- great for building endurance, but not much refining of strokes.

 

My recommendation would be the Y, if you have one within an hour or less away. Totally worth the trip, Ime. I think Ys are similar across the country. They have well defined levels with multiple checkpoints for each level. Some teachers are older teens, some adults, but they tend to be extremely consistent in their teaching. Each Y has a swim director who supervises and sees that standards are met, so you are not subject to whims of individual teachers.

 

Also, Y membership is very reasonable for kids under 12. And I think that it is good to do swimming lessons year round, once a week, rather than trying to do it all in a brief period.

 

Adding -- you said that you did not swim. There are instructors who specialize in adults, even those with fear of water. But lessons are individual and $$$, from what I have heard.

 

Great job getting your kids an intro to swimming. They'll learn. My kids would stay at one level forever, it seemed, then all of a sudden, they'd progress rapidly. Just like other learning, lol. If I had tried to do daily lessons, I might have hit a low period - but, take heart, your kids will learn in time.

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I had to look up the kicks because I did not know them by name but they teach the flutter kick. My middle child did try to do something more like the whip kick and had a harder time with flutter. With oldest they are having her do 3 strokes then slide glide for a while but they never showed how she should kick in slide glide which looks a little different in videos.

 

We had lessons in the Y and they were not even doing a nice progression of learning to float, then glide and then strokes etc. They would use noodles and kick boards and worked above the water and did not even teach floating or putting your head in and gliding. They changed directors twice since then and I heard they got much better with a better progression. They used to have a stroke school swim team at the Y which would have been perfect but they did away with it. The director of these lessons is the old director at the Y. They do have levels and a clear progression at least.

Edited by MistyMountain
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I couldn't tell you all the terms for swimming. I don't know if I learned whip kick (I looked it up, it looks kind if difficult or cumbersome). The flutter kick may be something I've done but without knowing a term for it. I mainly remember freestyle and some type of swimming on my back (not sure if it was actual back stroke, can't remember what I did with my arms). Also learned a simple dive and all we did for floating was the snow angel pose. I don't think that's how most people float though lol.

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No advice here, but I can give you commiseration. We did a similar swim lesson program, and it went about the same. My 8yo is finally starting to pick up this whole swimming thing, somewhat. The 6yo is now expert in "swallowing fishies", lol.

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Building trust is a big thing, the child needs to be confident that the instructor will do, or not do what she says. It can take awhile. Even moving through the different levels can take take some time.

 

When I taught swimming, I had one family whose kids never had a problem putting their faces in the water.  That made teaching them to float on their stomachs so much more easier.  I wondered what they did that made their kids not mind water on their faces.  I was told that ever since they were babies, they have played in the shower (parent holding them of course) and always got their head and faces wet early on.  It is that kind of early positive experience that really helped with the hump of putting their face in the water. 

 

I would check out Red Cross swim courses.  True, the students on the swim team may know how to stroke, but lack the experience of teaching others, especially children.  Being intuitive, especially with kids in the water, is so important, especially where trust is involved.  

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I think some kids just take longer.  My girls both were slow to start, and suddenly started to progress.  They were also both skinny, tended to sink, and get too cold in the water.

 

On the bright side, I think kids who are older are less likely to stall at lessons, which seems common with younger swimmers - they get to a point where their strokes are technically good, but they can't do the distance.

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Building trust is a big thing, the child needs to be confident that the instructor will do, or not do what she says. It can take awhile. Even moving through the different levels can take take some time.

 

When I taught swimming, I had one family whose kids never had a problem putting their faces in the water.  That made teaching them to float on their stomachs so much more easier.  I wondered what they did that made their kids not mind water on their faces.  I was told that ever since they were babies, they have played in the shower (parent holding them of course) and always got their head and faces wet early on.  It is that kind of early positive experience that really helped with the hump of putting their face in the water. 

 

I would check out Red Cross swim courses.  True, the students on the swim team may know how to stroke, but lack the experience of teaching others, especially children.  Being intuitive, especially with kids in the water, is so important, especially where trust is involved.  

 

That's really interesting.  I posted on the other thread that my 2 year old learned to swim in one day the first time he went in a pool.  

 

Well, the reason he'd never been in a pool until 2 was that he had a problem with his throat and wasn't allowed to drink.  Since toddlers love to try and drink any water they're in, this meant no pool, and no bath.  So he showered in my arms, and later standing on the bottom of the shower from the very beginning.  Actually, even before the drinking thing was diagnosed, I discovered that the shower was the only thing that would soothe him when he was crying from reflux, so we often took 3 or 4 showers a day, starting when he was only a few weeks old.

 

It never occurred to me to connect it with the swimming.

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I posted on the other thread about lessons at the Y. I didn't mention that my kids also took free (to members) lessons at our local pool club. Y lessons were exponentially better. My kids were also on pool club swim team -- great for building endurance, but not much refining of

I had the opposite experience. My kids took lessons at the local pool and they were amazing. My son went from no strokes/no swimming to all 4 proper and diving in 6 weeks.

 

The next summer both kids passed level 6 twice.

 

We wanted to keep up skills through the winter, so I put them in Y lessons after calling and speaking with them and being assured they could accommodate them.

 

The first day, the instructor "helped" my son jump into the 3' section of the pool (he was 9 or 10). She wouldn't allow them to swim out of her reach. And there was a lot of sitting on the side listening to lectures. It was a massive waste. None of the non swimmers came out swimming, and none of the low swimmers improves.

 

At the local pool, most of the kids come out being able to use the slide or diving board safely from level 2 and up. They teach diving in level 3. 4 is proper stroke training. 5 is laps. 6 is "you'd better look perfect for all billion laps we assign, and we'll make you swim laps outside of lessons!" If level 6 is passed but repeated because they're too young for lifeguard, the guards will start racing them. And when there's a few multiple 6ers, the guards start unofficial lifeguard training. My son is 12 and is absolutely expected to take the lifeguard class and work at the pool at 15. He's an honerary guard now and helps with out of water safety when Y camp is there.

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I had the opposite experience. My kids took lessons at the local pool and they were amazing. My son went from no strokes/no swimming to all 4 proper and diving in 6 weeks.

 

 

Which 4 strokes did he learn in 6 weeks, and how old was he?  I've noticed over the decades I've been swimming myself, teaching swimming and seeing my own dc take current swimming lessons, that the life-saving strokes taught in lessons have changed over time. Competitive strokes (front and back crawl, breast stroke, butterfly) have remained the same, with breast stroke having the most changes in technique and rules.

 

Back in my day as a teen (I'm 50) the swim strokes in lessons building up to life-saving were: Front and back crawl (learned first), elementary back (whip kick on the back), side stroke (scissor kick), breast stroke. Additional "strokes" to move through the water were sculling (head and foot first) with hands while laying on the back, and eggbeater kick. Head-up front crawl is also required.

 

Elementary back and side stroke seem to have been dropped, and butterfly is sometimes attempted to be taught (without much success unless done through swim clubs and over years of instruction). 

 

These strokes are learned and built up progressively over years in order to be able to do them effectively. The various types of kicks (whip, scissor, eggbeater) are useful in pulling a drowning victim through the water while allowing one's hands to be free to hold them. It takes good technique, strength and endurance to be able to pull a person through the water 50 m or more, required for the National Lifesaving test. 

Edited by wintermom
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I have to say as someone who trains instructors, it drives me nuts when I see kids sitting on the side significant portion of lessons. There are so many drills and class formation you can use to keep everyone working on something and occupied. Some sitting on the side may be necessary, but not a lot.

 

I have to go in my class now. I do want to say pool time between lessons significantly increases rate of skill acquisition. Kids take what they get in a good lesson and play with it.

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  • 1 month later...

They took a little break for the fall and started again recently. They now have different instructors that seem to be giving instructions and advice now and there is an instructor from the swim team who will make the rounds and help different levels. When that instructor helps my kids made a ton more progress in one day then they did the entire summer. She taught my youngest to float and move on to learning to swim and middle is gliding along on his back. She said he picked it up fast. He just needed a little advice. Ds is no longer complaining about lessons and how useless they are.

Edited by MistyMountain
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Swimming is a priority for us because, we do live in the land of 10,000 lakes!

 

Most of my kids were not early swimmers.  Some were really nervous in the water.  In our town, we only had teen instructors.  They were hit and miss.  One was unsafe.  Some were good.  

 

My kids who struggled benefitted from having a session of private lessons, but even that was with a teen instructor.  But, at least they got the full hour of attention.  As soon as I could, I signed them up for our town's summer swim club.  That's when they really advanced.  They didn't need to be very good when they began, but the instruction and instructors were excellent.

 

My kids all ended up being very good swimmers.  One of them was one of the top backstrokers in our state, but randomly, never learned how to float on her back, even still.  She just sinks.  

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I haven't read all the replies.

 

It sounds to me that the instruction is only ok.  But generally, I've found a few things.

 

There seems to be limits on how technical they will get in general classes.

 

Kids don't always pick things up as quickly as you'd think, given their general athleticism.  Especially skinny kids seem slower to start - I think they get too cold, and are less floaty - this can make them feel less safe in the water too.

 

Extra time to practice and swim seems to make a huge difference.

 

 

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Yes my youngest will be the hardest and really there is only do much you can do. It is part needing to get comfortable and part stubbornness and not liking being given instructions. It is hard to take her swimming because she only will go in the 2 foot and under section and the other two need or want to go in either the deep section or the section a little over 3 feet.

 

There used to be a swim team where all you needed was the two strokes and to swim across the pool and they teach everything else you need or swim teams where you just need to swim across the pool even but now all the teams they need to have all four strokes really refined and for long distances not just one lap at a time. I think an adult helping more and the longer practices of a swim team would be helpful. My oldest wants to be able to join the swim team and it seems like a close social community but she needs a little help to get there.

I would email the team and ask them where kids typically go before them. Somebody/place is the feeder for that swim team. Kids don't just learn fly and breast on their own.

 

It sounds like you need to research a more skilled instructor. I would probably opt for private lessons for your 7yo.

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They took a little break for the fall and started again recently. They now have different instructors that seem to be giving instructions and advice now and there is an instructor from the swim team who will make the rounds and help different levels. When that instructor helps my kids made a ton more progress in one day then they did the entire summer. She taught my youngest to float and move on to learning to swim and middle is gliding along on his back. She said he picked it up fast. He just needed a little advice. Ds is no longer complaining about lessons and how useless they are.

 

Glad they are making better progress now. Maybe you can hire that swim team instructor for a few private lessons with all your children. It sounds like they are at the point where they can build a solid foundation in their strokes and skills.

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