Learning how to swim can be a life-saving skill. It is essential for parents to teach their children how to swim and self-rescue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), drowning is the third leading cause of unintentional injury death, accounting for 7% of all injury-related deaths (World Health Organization, 2015). From this perspective, it is necessary to provide children with the opportunity to learn water survival skills. In this blog post, we will discuss the paradigm shifts in traditional swimming lessons and introduce a new approach to teaching children to swim.
Traditional swimming lessons typically focus on teaching children how to swim through a regimented process. Children are trained to swim laps and perform specific strokes. However, this approach ignores the natural way in which children learn best. It is similar to teaching a child a dance choreography, which is a lot to remember. Selena Willows shares that the teaching methodology has remained the same for almost 100 years.
However, when it comes to teaching swimming, she believes that traditional swimming instruction is too prescriptive. Selena Willows, with 28 years of experience in teaching high fear sports, including swimming, thinks the learning process should mirror how children naturally learn to walk, run, and play. She suggests that we need to shift the traditional swimming lessons paradigm to be more child-led and let children acquire skills in a fun way.
Selena recommends using an approach that is not only child-led but more intuitive. The Swim to Me program is a new approach to teaching swimming. It is a program Selena developed that teaches parents how to teach their children to swim and self-rescue.
The focus of the Swim to Me program is not on completing strokes and laps but on teaching children to enjoy being in the water. Parents and children learn water safety and communication support, which is essential in the water. By using the principles that children naturally learn by playing, the program takes into account the child's psychology and promotes an open, fun environment.
Selena believes that this program's success is that it focuses on creating an intuitive way of teaching swimming lessons, which involves gradual exposure of children to water. This is done through creative activities such as playing with water toys and holding them upside down. This would give children exposure to different physical sensations. Parents are encouraged to hold their kids upside down to introduce different physical orientations and sensations. Selena explains that some people may have a negative physical reaction due to not being upside down as a child.
The fear, worry, and anxiety around water that develop after the milestone age of around five or six years become ingrained, making it harder to overcome later in life, even with swimming lessons. These feelings can lead to panicking in the water, and, as humans, we struggle to get ourselves out of water once we have panicked. By teaching children to swim from a young age, it is hoped that it would not only prevent accidents but also improve emotional and physical wellbeing.
Ultimately, teaching your child to swim is not only a fun activity, but it is also a life-saving skill. We must shift the traditional way of teaching swimming and embrace new approaches that prioritize the child's psychology and intuitive learning processes. The Swim to Me program, developed by Selena Willows, prioritizes intuition and ensures that children gain confidence in the water through fun-based activities and parent-child bonding.
With the importance of swimming lessons in saving lives, it is essential for parents and instructors to embrace the change in the traditional swim lesson paradigm. By doing so, children would enjoy the process of learning to swim and be confident in the water.
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