Reply to Can your five year old swim?

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[quote=Anonymous]I don't think it's a brag thing that people have answered OP accurately.  All of my children could swim by 2 and all (ten and under, close in age) can swim three lengths of a big pool - eldest can swim a mile easily.  But we lived in Samoa on a beach when they were babies and it was either put the little blighters on a long leash tied to a palm tree or teach them about water.  It's hard to baby-proof a lagoon.

OP here's what I have learned: it doesn't matter whether your kid is a good swimmer but if you know people with pools, boats, beach houses or if you live by water then you MUST teach them to be okay floating in water and getting to safety.  That's a couple of days work.  To me it's as basic as teaching a child not to put their hand in a fire, not to touch the cleaning products under the sink and not to put plastic bags over their head (did anyone else have that child??).  So dump all the expectations set by beltway-bitches whose kids are a whisker away from the Olympics and focus of getting them to the stage where if someone picks them up and chucks them off a boat into the sea (a sophisticated water-safety test in our house back in the day - with dad in the very shallow water I might add) they can hold their breath, surface, lie on their back, float for a couple of minutes and maybe (on a good day with a tail wind) dog paddle.

Whatever you do don't buy into the "if he doesn't like water he's not ready" thing.  Those are the most at risk.  Start early, go hard.  Make it fun.  [/quote]

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