Swimming Classes for Your Child Have Many Benefits

Swimming is an essential life skill that everyone should learn. It is a skill that is best learned early in life. Teaching children to swim at an early age not only helps to keep them safe around the water, but there are several other benefits as well. Swimming helps children in all aspects of development, including physical, cognitive, and emotional. Here are some additional key reasons why you should start swimming classes for your very young kids:

Water Safety

The most important benefit of starting swimming classes early is that a child will learn about water safety. Drowning is the leading cause of accidental death for children under 5 years old. With the correct survival swimming program, children will learn skills that will help prevent them from drowning in the event of an aquatic accident. While NO SWIMMING LESSONS will make a child drown proof, survival swimming lessons can and do save lives. Teaching children how to get into a float without any flotation devices gives them a fighting chance should they fall into the water alone. Moreover, starting swimming lessons early helps avoid the fear of water. Most children do not have fear of water until about 2 years of age. Starting lessons at a young age makes it easier and more comfortable for them to learn this crucial skill. On the other hand, if kids have never been in the water by 2 years old, they may begin to show fear of water, making swimming lessons a bit more difficult.

Increased Balance and Strength

Swimming lessons are a great way to improve a child’s balance and build strength through regular and repetitive exercises in the water. In children under the age of 5, swimming classes can help with the development of gross motor skills. Children who swim are known to have better motor control compared to their peers.

Swimming Classes Provide a Good Cardio Workout

Swimming makes the heart and lungs stronger and boosts cardiovascular development. By starting swimming lessons for your child early on, you set them on a path to a healthier life.

Improves Cognitive Functioning

When swimming, you have to move your arms while kicking with your legs. Movements like these, which involve both sides of the body, help your child’s brain develop. Also, known as cross-patterning movements, these movements help build neurons, particularly in the corpus callosum. This helps improve modulation from one side of the brain to the other and facilitates communication and feedback. It can significantly improve a child’s spatial awareness, language development, reading skills, and academic learning. Research has shown that children who swim show better physical and mental development when compared to their peers. They are ahead in math, verbal, and literacy skills.

Social Interaction

Regardless of whether your child takes private or group swimming lessons, they have a lot of social interaction. Even when taking private lessons, they interact with the swimming coach and learn positive social interaction. They learn how to take instructions from someone other than their parents. In a group setting, they also learn how to interact with their peers. This helps boost their confidence and self-esteem.

Improves Appetite and Helps Sleep Better

Many parents complain that their child does not eat or sleep well. One of the major contributors to this problem is the lack of appropriate physical activity. By swimming and splashing in the water, a child would definitely expend a lot of energy and would feel hungry and sleepy. This positive change in appetite and sleep routine could help them lifelong.

One Thing to Avoid

Parents should avoid swimming classes that encourage blowing bubbles, using flotation devices, and swimming with heads up (vertical position). Horizontal swimming and floating are safest.

Child and Parent Bonding

Swimming helps parents and children bond better. What better way to indulge your children than to take them to the pool where they learn a new skill and spend time splashing in the water (who doesn’t love that!). So, now that you know all the benefits of starting swimming lessons early, contact us now to book a class for your child.