Is 8 year old too late to learn swimming to do swim team/ pre swim team for summertime?

[Anonymous]

DS is 8. He has done 2 years of group lessons and he still can't swim. He is still doing group lesson 45 min/week plus starts taking private 1:1 instruction 30 min/week. The instructor says he floats pretty well, bad at kicking, and back stroke is not that bad. She also mentions that he has a lot to work on breathing and others.

Adding private lesson, we hope that increases his chance to learn how to swim & possibly join a swim team or pre swim team one day for summertime only just for experiences if he can ever make it. He loves pool time. His summer camp has pool time daily but he just plays in it. We try to go to pool once a week but he just plays in the pool. He is comfortable at 3.5 ft water depth (but not 4 ft) because he is 53 inches tall. We are not there yet, but can someone share what possible summer pre swim or swim teams option can we look into in montgomery county once he makes enough progress? Are those like summer camps that anyone can sign up or need to be auditioned/invited? Any tips for his swim progress is welcomed as well, thanks.

[Anonymous]

Do you belong to a pool?
If not look at whichever public pool near you has a swim team and ask. I know the MLK pool has a swim team for example.
Our pool says they have to be able to swim a lap to be on swim team. Doesn’t have to be pretty but has to be a lap without touching the bottom.

[Anonymous]

Just keep at it, but not every kid is going to be a swimmer, let alone a competitive one.

[Anonymous]

some kids take years of lessons until it clicks
Just keep trying

[Anonymous]

Swim team generally requires that kids can swim 25m unassisted and without stopping. Some require more. But it's not particularly fun for a 9 yo (next summer) if the kid who can barely swim. He'd want to have basic proficiency in the main strokes.

The best way to learn is to do daily lessons + daily practice. It really helps skills develop. Private 1:1 lessons are also a big help, as they're just so much more efficient. Daily pool time is also a big help.

[Anonymous]

Not at all. One kid joined our team at the beginning of middle school and is the happiest one on it.

[Anonymous]

Swim lessons never worked for my kids. We had to basically just go to the pool every day one summer and teach them ourselves.

[Anonymous]

I would put your kid on pre team now. At our pool there’s a range of abilities on pre team and they get 1:1 attention with the teen coaches. They get to participate in all the fun activities associated with swim team and then it inspires them to keep going!

[Anonymous]

No it’s not too late, as long as your pool has an appropriate program for him because it doesn’t sound like he swims well enough for the team. My kid also took a long time with weekly lessons to learn. Maybe it was the Covid disruption. I don’t know but they’re now doing swim team

[Anonymous]

Not too late at all but the kid needs very frequent 1:1 lessons. 1x/week won’t do anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would put your kid on pre team now. At our pool there’s a range of abilities on pre team and they get 1:1 attention with the teen coaches. They get to participate in all the fun activities associated with swim team and then it inspires them to keep going!

Not to be snarky at all but will your 8 year old be embarrassed at all by being with 5-6 year olds?

I have a 9 and 7 year old who are on the swim team and they wouldn’t want to do pre-swim because their baby brother is in it (and he is just turned 5).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not too late at all but the kid needs very frequent 1:1 lessons. 1x/week won’t do anything.

+1

If he's had group lessons this long and still needs help, stop doing those and increase the frequency of 1:1. Also, get him in the pool as much as possible.

[Anonymous]

He doesn’t sound like he is ready for a swim team. My kid’s swim team required kids to freestyle 1 length of the pool without stopping or grabbing onto the wall. Do you belong to a pool and can you swim? I would keep practicing in the pool in hopes of advancement.

[Anonymous]

Daily pool time involving you actually working with him on kicking and freestyle arms (breathing can come later). Get a kickboard and watch a couple of YouTube videos to see how to use it to teach a proper kick. Practice floating on back, with his head on your shoulder if needed. Set actual goals (time spent floating, number of freestyle strokes in a row, distance traveled) and try to meet them. Reward can be a jump off the side into deeper water (with you there to catch if he cant make it back to the wall himself).

Try to encourage focusing on learning in the water: lots of kids are so distracted by the fact that they are in a pool with things happening all around them that they hear very little of what is said to them. Or they bob and bounce and play and doggy paddle rather than actually trying to swim.

Summer swim at its best is kind and encouraging to all. But there is no pretending that it's easy to be a 10-year-old beginner, no matter how you slice it. Good for you, OP, for trying to make this the transition year at age 8. We're cheering for DS!

[Anonymous]

Op here. We don't belong to any pool. I don't know any swim team or pre swim team information. We live near Quince Orchard HS. I can't swim, so I can't teach or show him how to swim. His summer camps ends at 6-6:30pm, and his school days ends at 6pm to 8pm with other activities. We can only do swimming on weekend on top of soccer season/swim class/other activities, so 1x/week group swim, 1x/week private swim & ocassional once a week go to pool is already a lot on our schedules. I have 2 other younger kids as well with me working fulltime.