Anonymous
Post 03/14/2024 11:10     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

All we need is red rum
Anonymous
Post 03/14/2024 10:47     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

We did the jump start clinic at goldfish. If you are around for spring break I would sign up. If you are traveling and have time off spring break is still a great time for continued exposure.

For what it is worth our pool's Jr swim team doesn't have strict requirements to be a part of the team. The kids just have to be okay without parents for 45 minutes.
Anonymous
Post 03/14/2024 10:39     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I think he just has to swim across the pool to get in. Doggy paddling is what I'm really looking for at this point. Yes the jr swim team is definitely mostly lessons.

We really are only able to go to the pool once a week in winter, but when the pools open in May we go daily. I just don't want him to miss out and have to sit with me all summer while the others swim.



IMO/experience, if this is the case and you aren't able to prioritize this beyond 1x/wk for 30-60 minutes he's not going to progress to where you want him to be this summer. There is no magic short-cut here - he needs more exposure than you have made time for.

2 years ago I was where you are, more or less, but we were doing group lessons year round because, like you I wanted to set them up to be able to participate in swim team. Fast forward to 6 months ago and dc was good enough to make it on a club team as a 6yo and is now legal in all 4 strokes. Mostly group lessons worked for us but we were going 2x a week and got a few private lessons just before they tried out for pre-team 2 summers ago(needed to make across 25m free and be comfortable in water over their head).

Realistically you need to adjust either your priorities or expectations here.



Anonymous
Post 03/14/2024 10:17     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

So you want your kid on swim team, but what about what they want? What about what they love? At this age, they should be exploring different activities. What they get accomplished at may not even be something they’ve tried yet.

Skills can be taught, but the love of an activity can’t.

Anonymous
Post 03/14/2024 09:39     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

Get your kid in the water as frequently as possible. But, IME (with kids who started slow but became competitive swimmer), it really has to just click with the kid. Mine were stuck at beginner levels until they got over whatever aspect that was the stumbling block (coordinated strokes, rhythmic breathing, or going in the deep end). Once the kid gets over those, they can take off pretty quickly with frequent practice. It's not all under your control though. Just because your other kids took off quickly doesn't mean this kid will. It helps to have a teacher who is really good at breaking skills down into really small bites and have the kid practice each component slowly and repeatedly.
Anonymous
Post 03/14/2024 09:29     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Just buy a different house that has a pool so he can practice at home.
This. Then you can flit into the pool at any hour. You can go in the morning or come out after dinner. Even a midnight swim. It’s so much fun.


Anonymous
Post 03/14/2024 07:41     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

Anonymous wrote:Just buy a different house that has a pool so he can practice at home.
This. Then you can flit into the pool at any hour. You can go in the morning or come out after dinner. Even a midnight swim. It’s so much fun.
Anonymous
Post 03/14/2024 07:37     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

Lots of private lessons 3-4 times a week. He started late and once a week swimming will not cut it.
Anonymous
Post 03/14/2024 07:33     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

If you can only go once a week, then take him with his siblings and let him play for several hours that one time a week. Playing and exploring with his body is what will get him there faster than lessons.

And think about that vacation!

Anonymous
Post 03/14/2024 07:26     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

I agree with the PP that did not do lessons with her you hear until he could swim on his own. I also have 3 kids and spent worthless years trying to teach my eldest since she was 3. She did not learn until she was 6. My second didn’t do lessons because of Covid and learned on her own before 6 in the summer at the beach. My last boy learned last summer at 4.5 at the beach/pool. We were on vacation for 3 weeks at a resort and that’s how he learned. I put him in private classes in September and son group classes later on. Now he can swim ugly freestyle and backstroke at 5.
Anonymous
Post 03/13/2024 21:43     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

+1 to all the posters who said let him play all day in a pool for a week. Preferably a pool where he can just touch the bottom so that he feels secure enough to go under water on his own. Swimming on top of the water with front crawl is very complicated and requires a lot of coordination of arms, legs, and breathing. Diving and swimming under water does not. From my limited experience of having 2 kids who now swim year round, kids learn strokes much more easily when they already know how to dive and swim under water.
Anonymous
Post 03/13/2024 21:32     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

Those toys that you throw in the pool and the kids dive for worked to get our twins going under water more and made it easier to practice their swimming
Anonymous
Post 03/13/2024 20:04     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

How do you make it to Carnegie Hall? This is a clown question
Anonymous
Post 03/13/2024 19:59     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

Pool exposure. Multiple times a week and multiple times a week lessons. My 5 year ild learned in two weeks with daily lessons. Went from refusing to put head in water to a decent doggy paddle. But it was in summer.
Anonymous
Post 03/13/2024 19:50     Subject: How to get kid swimming quick?

Playing with other kids in a pool.