Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Time in the water and lessons.

There is no line of thinking that says you’ll be able to swim if you’re thrown in the water young! My kids did ISR (infant self rescue) classes. They are taught. Even then, while they were able to roll over onto back and float at age 2, they sort of forgot and needed continual swim lessons. They are doing swim team now to become more competent. It might be easy for some but most kids I know need tons of lessons and experience

There actually is that line of thinking but it’s misinformed and old school. My dad believed that a child would learn how to swim if you throw them into the deep end. That’s demonstrably false. I don’t know why people say it.

I actually agree with your dad. I've seen it with numerous kids, where they would get lessons and could perform all teh basic swimming maneuvers, but as soon as you put them in the deep end, they freaked out and completely forgot what they had learned.

Im not talking about performing a picture perfect freestyle, but floating and treading water is actually something that should come naturally to most people. It's just that fear of drowning that prevents people from being able to do it.

So once you safely have them in the deep end with supervision, and they learn to overcome that fear... they will learn to float.

Anonymous wrote:Time in the water and lessons.

There is no line of thinking that says you’ll be able to swim if you’re thrown in the water young! My kids did ISR (infant self rescue) classes. They are taught. Even then, while they were able to roll over onto back and float at age 2, they sort of forgot and needed continual swim lessons. They are doing swim team now to become more competent. It might be easy for some but most kids I know need tons of lessons and experience

There actually is that line of thinking but it’s misinformed and old school. My dad believed that a child would learn how to swim if you throw them into the deep end. That’s demonstrably false. I don’t know why people say it.

Time in the water and lessons.

There is no line of thinking that says you’ll be able to swim if you’re thrown in the water young! My kids did ISR (infant self rescue) classes. They are taught. Even then, while they were able to roll over onto back and float at age 2, they sort of forgot and needed continual swim lessons. They are doing swim team now to become more competent. It might be easy for some but most kids I know need tons of lessons and experience