Learning to Swim

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine were around 4-5, I think. I don't really remember.

But I work with tweens & teens in a volunteer role in which I monitor them taking a swim test for some summer activities, and there are a lot of 11-15 year olds who can't do this. In our last group, about 15% couldn't swim or tread water at all. I don't mean "swim" as a competion-legal stroke across the pool, I mean they couldn't dog-paddle 15 feet. And that doesn't count the ones who wouldn't even sign up to try.

I’m > 50 and just learning now.

[Anonymous]

7 and this has just clicked this year. I still watch him.

[Anonymous]

Mine weren't ready to jump off the diving board until they were 8 and 10. Flame away, super mamas!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine weren't ready to jump off the diving board until they were 8 and 10. Flame away, super mamas!!!

🤡

[Anonymous]

Swimming underwater isn't swimming, y'all. It's playing. And it doesn't make kids able to support themselves to breathe if they get into trouble. Underwater "swimmers" often dog-paddle, gasp, and sink if they try to tread water. Then they can't take in enough air calmly enough to go back underwater and propel themselves where they need to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Swimming underwater isn't swimming, y'all. It's playing. And it doesn't make kids able to support themselves to breathe if they get into trouble. Underwater "swimmers" often dog-paddle, gasp, and sink if they try to tread water. Then they can't take in enough air calmly enough to go back underwater and propel themselves where they need to go.

I am the parent of one of the early swimmers, yes they swam underwater at first, but by their third birthday they could surface take a breath and keep going across the pool. It was definitely swimming.

[Anonymous]

Covid interrupted my kids swimming momentum. They went without getting in a pool for about 10 months and without lessons for about 14 months. My oldest picked back up ok but my youngest had to about start over again. They were swimming comfortably in the deep end with close parent supervision at 6 or 7. It took until they were 8 or 9 before I trusted them enough for me to read a book poolside while they played in the deep end.

[Anonymous]

8

[Anonymous]

6, 5 and 4.5. My eldest and middle child are now 10 and 8 and compete year round. Youngest is 5 and learning the strokes, but can comfortably swim 25+ feet doggy paddle or ugly freestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine weren't ready to jump off the diving board until they were 8 and 10. Flame away, super mamas!!!

The OP doesn’t say anything about a diving board; just jumping into the deep end. My kids could do the latter much earlier than the former but even then I wouldn’t let them in the deep end until they passed a treading/ water test. It is great to be able to jump into deep end and swim to edge but that doesn’t mean a kid has the stamina to be called a “”swimmer”