Why Your Child Should Learn To Swim
In the height of summer, when the days are hot and long, and the school holidays are giving kids a sense of freedom and fun, there is, unfortunately, a lurking statistic. Every year, youngsters drown because they can’t swim.
It is that some children, not many, we all trust, but a precious few, will die. A few, is of course too many, but it is an undeniable fact, that as the summer heat builds up, the spectre of children drowning will raise its head.
Teaching your child to swim is one of life’s little insurance policies. It can’t ensure that something untoward can be avoided, but some chance is better than no chance.
The odds of having a motoring accident will not alter whether you wear a seatbelt or not, but the potential for altering possible outcomes if you do, is in your hands, so it is with teaching the ability to swim.
Safety is the first and foremost reason for learning to swim, but certainly not the only one. It is a life skill that once learned, your child will never lose for the whole of their life.
Almost all children want to learn one sport or more, if only to follow their hero’s or heroine’s fame on the football field, or tennis court perhaps, but scoring goals, or smashing forehands wouldn’t save a child’s life if they fall into deep water.
Swimming, as a social and/or physical exercise is amongst the best. Once children have confidence and ability in the water, the fun they can have, swimming, splashing, jumping etc. actually uses more muscles around the body than pretty much any other sport will do.
This really is exercise and aerobics slipped in the back door. Swimming is especially good as a cardio-vascular exercise, and the longer they stay in pool the more their heart and lung function will strengthen.
Unlike land based disciplines, swimming is a no-impact workout that uses, and can tone, all the muscles, with no impact points to take pivotal strains.
Swimming lessons and training are best in the hands of those fully trained and qualified teachers who know how to create confidence, and encourage different children to advance at their own paces.
As in academic teaching, not everybody “gets it” as quickly as the next one.
The ability to swim can open up opportunities for sports and pastimes that only swimmers can enjoy. Surfing, canoeing, sailing, water-skiing, wind-surfing, snorkelling and diving, hardly scratches the surface of what is out there to employ and enjoy.