Seek quality Professional lessons

Helpful Hints

Seek quality Professional lessons

uSwim strongly advises your child be taught to swim by a professional. Good Swim teachers are more able to deal with problems that may arise. We also find it is good for children to have someone other than mum and dad to learn from. Swimming with children also has many benefits for kids such as taking turns, waiting safely, encouraging others and general interaction.

However, uSwim's better than guessing or poor lessons.

uSwim was created because only a fraction of the world's population have access or can afford professional lessons. For most families, its mum and dad who are gonna get the kids swimming. In the past you would need to rely on something 'Aunti Betti' said worked for her kids. uSwim allows you to feel confident you are using a systematic, tested and safe approach.

Challenge

Kids can loose focus really quickly. Think back to when you were on holidays or in the car with nothing to do. It drives kids crazy. In the pool, the most common sign a child is bored is misbehavior or attention seeking. The message is don't make lessons too easy. Keep them moving, keep them engaged and challenged.

Enjoy the journey, its not a race

The opposite of being bored, is being overwhelmed. While keeping your lessons challenging, be careful not to be obsessed with time-frames or what other kids are doing. All kids are different. As long as your little champion is trying their best, results will come. We see far too many parents at swim lessons get frustrated when they don't see immediate results. Children pick up on frustration just as well as fear. Its a confidence destroyer, and ultimately will slow their progress. Learning to swim is a journey with peaks and valleys, enjoy them all, it only happens once.

Just cause you did it, doesn't mean your kids will

The amount of times we get 'experts' telling us that "the best way to learn how to swim is throw the kids in the pool and make'em fend for themselves, cause thats how I learnt " is amazing. However what's more amazing is the amount of parents we get in our swim schools who have never been in a pool since their childhood - because they were thrown in and could not fend for themselves. Nostalgic bravado about the good old days sounds great. We'd prefer that all kids learn, not just the ones who find swimming initially easy.

Conventional wisdom isn't always right

The classic example we use is blowing bubbles before learning breath control. Many parents tell kids to blow bubbles in the pool. It looks fun and engages the young swimmer and seems right - until they inhale water and get the fright of their lives. If you ever have trouble getting a young child to put their eyes in the water, chances are they are hesitant because last time they got a mouthful of water. This happens because they were not holding/controlling their breath. The message here is that because something seems right, doesn't mean it it is.

Good technique first, speed later.

Kids want to be fast swimmers. But technique is what creates speed, not thrashing around. So concentrate on building sound fundamentals before you worry about making them look like Ian Thorpe.

Race the clock, not other kids

When children begin to see swimming as a competitive endeavour (earliest probably 6 years) we recomend you have them record their times and race the clock instead of just racing other kids. We feel racing other kids can sometimes deflate a child if they lose after lots of hard work. The fierce competitors will want to improve, all the others won't want to swim anymore. Aiming for personal best times gives each child a unique and personal goal that is always achievable.

In squads, children need to 'want' to train

Lots of parents ask us at the swim school what they should do because "Johnny doesn't seem to want to train for 5 days a week, after school when all his mates are playing". How dare he! Swimming is hard work. If a child is to become a great competitor while maintaining their sanity, the desire must burn from within. Sometimes a break is the best thing for worn out athletes.