7 steps to teaching a child to swim

 Swimming is not only a very useful training to prevent child drownings but it is very beneficial to increase the respiratory and lung capacity of children and encourage psychomotor development.

Every year, especially during the summer and on vacation, the cases of drowning children increase. The best way to avoid this is by teaching them to swim as soon as possible. Babies can begin to have their first contact and lose their fear of water through midwifery,  a modality that allows parents to dive into the pool and perform simple, fun exercises and games with their babies.

steps to teaching a child


But what happens when the baby grows? How can we teach him to swim and move through water without parental help? Here are some tips.


1. Losing fear

The first thing you have to achieve is that the child loses his fear of water and feels safe. The sooner your child becomes familiar with water, the better. You can start in 3 months. If the baby's first contact with water is with his parents, he will feel confident and secure, and he will lose fear. From 6 months, babies begin to lose the reflections to the water with which they are born. That is why it is recommended that your first contact with the pool be before.

2. Start where the water does not cover

When the child loses his fear of water, he can begin to learn to move in a place where he can touch the bottom with his feet. This will give you the security and confidence to continue learning to swim. One of the main problems of children when learning to swim is the fear of sinking. If you know you can put your feet up, the fear will disappear and that will give you an extra dose of confidence.

3. Teach him to blow bubbles to control his breathing

To teach him to breathe correctly, it is best to practice in the bathtub first. Ask him to take a breath or breathe in through his nose, hold his breath for a few seconds, and then submerge his mouth in the water and blow the air out through his mouth making bubbles in the water. You don't have to put your whole head under the water yet. It will be a game for him, but he will be practicing basic breathing to learn to swim. First, you do it, for the child to see and learn. Repeat these exercises several times until the child feels comfortable doing them.

4. Teach him to put his head in the water

Once the child has had fun with the bubble game, it is time to take another step. Ask them to put their face in the water when they make the bubbles. It will take a second. The first time you will be surprised, but when you see that the bubbles keep coming out and nothing happens, you will lose your fear. Then try to put his whole head in the water using the same game. If he is startled by bubbles rising up his nose, ask him to try with his head looking to the side.

steps to teaching a child


5. Teach him to move his legs and arms

For the child to learn to move his legs in the water, hold your hand by the belly and help him stay horizontal, perpendicular to the pool floor. Children tend to sink their legs and body at first, but before that happens, ask them to move their legs up and down, without bending their knees.

Once he learns to move his legs, the child must learn to move his arms. Stroke with the arms stretched forward, moving them up and down while holding it by the abdomen. The child should practice these exercises with the legs and arms, several times.

6. Coordination of arm and leg movements

Now you must coordinate the two previous exercises, the one with the bubbles and the leg movement. Hold him by the armpits and ask him to blow bubbles while moving his legs. Obviously, you are helping him. Right away, the time has come for you to learn to coordinate the movements of your arms with those of your legs. With practice, the child will achieve.

7. Let him try it alone.

Once he is confident in himself and practicing bubbles and thrashing, let him know for a few seconds that he can do it alone. This way you will learn to stay afloat in the water. You won't learn in a minute. Not in a day. You have to be patient, but with the help of these exercises and daily practice, your child will learn to swim. Parental motivation is essential for the child to learn to swim well.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teach children to swim in 7 steps

Image
 Swimming is one of the best sports for children. Not only does it represent a very useful training that reduces the risk of drowning, but it also contributes to expanding their lung capacity, promotes oxygenation, and stimulates children's psychomotor development. In addition, it improves the coordination of movements, strengthens the muscles, and favors their ability to move. And if that wasn't enough, it is an excellent exercise to relax children, while helping them to sleep better and get more rest. However, many times parents wait until their children are older to start them swimming. However, the truth is that the younger they are, the faster they will learn to swim. This is because they still retain the apnea and swim reflex, an involuntary response from when they were in the amniotic fluid inside their mother's uterus, which will allow them to function more easily in water. Another great advantage of teaching them while they are young is that they will present less ...
Read more

SIGNS THAT YOUR CHILD IS READY TO LEARN TO READ

Image
 Learning to read is not so much a question of age but of maturity. Therefore, not all children are prepared at the same age. When it is, progress will be very rapid. At what age should children begin to read and write? Our legislation says that in Primary, that is, at 6 years. That does not mean that before they cannot know the bases of it. In fact, both the traditional method - which at 3 years old begins with graphomotor skills to practice writing movements - as well as the global and constructivist method - which teaches words and texts from the age of 3 - work on this subject in Preschool. The Montessori method insists that learning to read and write is an ongoing process that takes place in parallel with brain development. Children go through sensitive periods that make them very reactive to certain teachings. Taking advantage of these sensitive periods that occur between the ages of 3 and 5 makes the child learn more easily, more effectively, and with greater motivation. Ext...
Read more

Teaching Reading Strategies, School and Educational Psychology

 Reading strategies are techniques or methods that readers use to acquire information, or procedures or activities chosen to facilitate the process of reading comprehension. They are flexible plans adapted to different situations that vary according to the text to be read and the approach previously elaborated by the reader to facilitate their understanding (Duffy & cols., 1987; Brown, 1994; Pellegrini, 1996; Kopke, 2001).  Duke and Pearson (2002) identified six types of reading strategies that research has suggested as aids in the comprehension process, namely: prediction, thinking out loud, text structure, visual representation of the text, summary, and questioning. The prediction implies anticipate, predict facts or text content using existing knowledge to facilitate understanding. Thinking out loud is when the reader verbalizes his thought while reading. Improvement in students' understanding has been demonstrated when they themselves dedicate themselves to this practi...
Read more