I get this question a lot. I get it because I’m at the pool with my three- and four-year-old children and people are watching them swim. I’m not in the water with them. I’m usually off, chatting with other parents while I watch them swim. I’m letting them swim, without helping them. I’m letting them discover what their limits are and work to push those limits. I’m hopefully giving them the confidence that they can swim without having to have an adult there, cautiously watching over them.
What do my children do in our neighborhood five-and-a-half foot maximum depth pool? At first they paddled and splashed around the entry steps and hand rail. Then they’d go over to the shared toy bin and get dive sticks and water rings and other things. They want to get the dive sticks on the very bottom of the pool, but they could only get them on the higher-up steps initially. They had to warm up with the first steps, then work their way down the steps to the bottom. They didn’t know how to get down to the bottom of the pool below the bottom step. They tried for a good while—several days—and didn’t really have a breakthrough.
Eventually, they figured out how to tip their body over and kick downwards. There were some words of advice from me and our sitter and a demo or two, but we mostly let them try and figure it out. Now they’re able to get things off the bottom of the pool easily at three feet of depth.
They do the dive stick thing for a while, but it gets boring after a while and they don’t really swim distance yet, but they want to move around, so they start jumping off the side. They will jump off from anywhere, regardless of pool depth, because they’ve figured out their bodies are buoyant and will float back up after they’ve jumped in. That means they jump with wild, reckless, childlike abandon all over the pool. There are ladders in a few places and those are fun to jump off near. They don’t mind if there is no ladder though, because they know how to reach up and grab the edge of the pool.
We didn’t help them in getting out of the pool, so they had to figure out options. First, they could hand-walk down the pool ledge while holding on until they get to a ladder or stairs. Or second, they could learn how to pull their bodies up and out of the pool. They started with the former, but mostly have decided it’s easier to just climb out all the time.
Sometimes they’ll get floats or noodles and swim around to be with friends who are in the middle of the pool area, but they’re not dependent on anything to keep them afloat. They both can swim a decent distance and then lift their head up to take a breath. This is something relatively new that’s still in development, but for the most part, I have very little concern anyone is going to not be able to breath while in the pool. Worse case, we’ve talked to them about dropping to the bottom and pushing off to get to the surface. That’s something I’ve practiced with them both.
So why do parents ask me where they took their swim lessons? It’s not because they’re doing proper stroking or kicking, because they really don’t do those things well. I think it’s because they have utter confidence in the pool and spend their afternoons having fun without an adult looming over them, worrying about them and making them wear “floaties,” which keep you from drowning, while simultaneously preventing you from learning to swim on your own.
I do get in the pool, but I don’t do so to help my children. When I do, they want me to throw them, which I will gladly do if they’ll swim out a good distance to me in the middle of the pool. But the moment they start hanging on me, I suddenly discover I have a neighbor I need to have a conversation with in a lounge chair.
I am very, very proud of how well my children swim and their confidence in the water at this age. We are taking formal swim lessons next week. Hopefully they’ll get some tips to expand their swimming knowledge.
The Big Boy Update: A song came on the radio today in the car and my daughter started to sing along. My son said, “Reese, you’re rockin’ out.” Then he said to me, “what does, ‘rockin’ out mean?’”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter plays by herself a lot in the pool. She does this because she’s having fun doing things alone and is very happy. She’s underwater so much of the time, I suppose that makes sense. She can dive for things and jump off the side of the pool for hours.
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