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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Three kids, many summers of lessons and they still can't swim. There are many reasons for this but partly I think we haven't been pushing it enough. We also don't live in a place with nice weather or many pools so there's just not really a summer swim culture here. They need to learn for safety reasons.

We're going to be by a pool for a week next week and I'm wondering how far I can get them on my own. My dad taught me how to swim and I was good enough to be on the swim team.

If you've bypassed the lessons or rec center thing and taught them on their own, how did you do it?[/quote]

You do have to reinforce skills but lots of exposure to swimming (ocean/lake/pool) can help a lot too when it comes to confidence. It is also somewhat personality driven: children who are more open to new experiences are going to take to swimming more quickly (or that’s my observation with my three kids). Lastly, kids with lower tone and less athletic ability (kids who for example, walked on the later side of normal and achieve physical athletic milestones, like riding a bike or doing monkey bars later) will need to work harder or will take longer to get to the same place as more athletic peers.

I wouldn’t make it your goal to get all kids comfortably swimming on your own in a week’s time. You’ll make yourself and your kids miserable and you want to do everything as safely as possible.[/quote]

Regarding the tone thing, I agree with one caveat: super lean people with abnormally low body fat often have trouble swimming because they sink more easily. 
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A child with low tone could have low, average, ot higher than average body fat. They are independent of one another. People with hypotonia have muscles that require more effort and oxygen than typical muscles, so a child learning how to swim with hypotonia will have less endurance and get tired more easily, and so much of swimming independently is related to stamina in the water. [/quote]

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