Swimming is an important lesson to learn for your kid’s enjoyment and especially for their safety. There are some great methods and ideas on how to teach children to swim so they can become strong, happy, and confident swimmers.

Water Activities are fun

Water can be intimidating regardless of whether it’s a pool, lake, or ocean. Because of this, it is important to make your child feel comfortable around water. If they haven’t been in the water before or have had a bad experience with water, you should do your best to make it seem fun. Fill up the pool with toys, floaties, and people they love. Your child will feel comforted by having you and others around them. They will always be distracted by the bright, fun toys that are floating around.

Once your child realizes how fun the water can be, you can start taking the first steps toward learning. Start off slow, and always make them feel safe and supported. Your child will be a strong swimmer in no time with a little patience and practice.

Bring the right swimming gear for your kids

Like any other water sport activity, you have to have the right swimming gear for children. Kids swim confidently when they have the right gear on. Parents can teach their children how to swim faster and better when they have the right gear. Knowing how to teach your child to swim yourself is not enough. Get the swimming gear first.

Some of the swimming items include:

• Swimming goggles
• Back float
• Swimming cap
• Swim vest or Arm bands
• Swim belt for kids
• Swim diapers for babies
• Headband
• Sand toys/Pool toys
• …

Create a swimming plan

Once you have decided to know how to teach your child to swim yourself and have bought the required swimming gear for kids, you want to create a plan. You are not a professional tutor, but you are a good parent.

Good parents make plans in advance. That is what you will do when seeking to know how to teach kids to swim.

First thing: find the dates when you want to make your kids swim.

Second thing: list the dates, and time down in your phone or other calendar

Do this a couple of weeks in advance. That way, you will confirm you will be free from work, and you can arrange to complete your home chores in good time.

Tip: As a parent, you know you cannot cast your plans in concrete. Things could come up requiring your attention. Keep an open mind!

Teach your child breath control

One of the most important things in how to teach a child to swim step by step is to teach them breath control. This is going to be hard and they will not learn it in the first few days. You need to teach them again and again, until they grasp the ability to blow bubbles by breathing out through the nose and mouth. Here it is recommended that the kids wear swim vest or arm bands at the beginning, focus on breath control first, when they feel confortable of the breathing rhythm and their swimming skill is much improved, they are able to get rid of their vests & bands.

Prioritize on kicking and arm movement

This should follow once your child starts exhibiting confidence in the water. What happens with most kids is that they try treading on water, same way that they walk. This affects their floatation. To help them, you may use a floatation belt for swimming or snorkeling. That should keep them afloat very well. As they learn how to kick, you should give them support so that they stay afloat. By support, we mean using the best floatation devices and keeping a keen eye on them.

It is as easy as playing a game

Do not make swimming bland, boring and just so-so. Pack some panache into it by getting the kids to compete. If you are learning how to teach a baby to swim, give him a reward after the experience, whether it went well or badly. If you are teaching a bigger child how to swim, challenge them to get to a certain distance. Take funny sand toys / pool toys to make the kids enjoy swimming.

Increase endurance

At this stage, you have truly wrapped your head around how to teach kids to swim. Once your kids swim well, have mastered arm, leg movements and blowing bubbles, you can start reducing the floatation devices. You may also start to increase the distance, and the time that they swim. However, note that your total attention is still needed. Same as teaching children how to scuba dive, keep your eyes peeled when teaching kids how to swim.

Conclusion

With this information for how to teach a child to swim step by step, you can now get ready and go ahead, teach your child how to swim. These are just the basics. There is much more. Teaching a baby to swim is a very exciting experience, but needs patience. With time, you will do it.