The easiest way for children to learn to swim is when they play catch-up next to each other. Chasing on the water, when you need to swim away from the pursuer in any way — the game is quite aggressive, but that’s what helps. When a child forgets about his fears, he just swims. And then he discovers that he is swimming, and if he does not have the benefit of maintaining his fear, then he understands that his fear is not terrible, and he knows how to swim well.
A vivid version of the return of a bold voyage is given in B. Raevsky’s story «Shock», see →
On the other hand, we remember: «Smart children are not afraid of anything, but they are careful and listen to their parents.» Necessarily!
Children most often drown on the water, who are not afraid of anything and do not think about anything, and children who are afraid of everything. Grandmothers scare the child with their stories, how “one naughty child did not obey the elders, went swimming alone and drowned”, mothers scare children with their anxiety, fathers — by throwing them into deep water.
Fear of water on water can lead to death in a seemingly absolutely safe (for someone who is not afraid) place. To avoid such fears, do not scare the children, but teach them to swim well and teach them to think where to dive and where not to swim.
If you or your child is afraid to swim, start with the float exercise. You go into the water up to your chest, preferably in a shallow pool — so that it’s not at all scary, you inhale the air, hold your breath, bend over and raise your legs from the bottom. And… Don’t drown.
The trick is that a person does not drown in water by himself. A person drowns when he starts swallowing water and starts to panic. Unlike swimming for speed, staying on the water itself requires almost no physical effort. Exception: those who are afraid to take a sip of water quickly get tired in the water, do not lower their heads into the water and, on the contrary, try to keep it above the water as high as possible …
Therefore, in order not to get tired in the water and not be afraid of water, learn to dive. And after that — learn to swim underwater, holding your breath. It is very simple, it works even for children under one year old. Try it — you will succeed too.
If children are taught cheerfully and in small steps, without any fears, almost any child over 4 years old can be taught to swim in half an hour maximum. Steps (all in shallow water):
- Hold your breath and sit down, briefly plunging headlong into the water. Repeatedly.
- The same thing — staying longer with your head under water.
- Inhale, dive under the water and exhale into the water.
- Exercise «Float». Compete for how long you can do the «Float».
- Do «Float» and exhale into the water.
- Dive underwater and swim underwater. Swim more underwater.
- Inhale, swim longer under water to exhale everything into the water.
- It’s like diving and swimming with your head submerged in water, although in reality you are swimming on the surface of the water.
- In such surface swimming, watch your arms and legs to swim like a frog (future breaststroke).
- In such surface swimming, teach yourself the movements of the arms and legs, as in freestyle, but the head is under water all the time.
- When the movements of the arms and legs are worked out, as in the breaststroke, start raising your head to inhale — and exhale into the water.
- When the movements of the arms and legs are worked out, as in the freestyle, start turning your head to inhale — and exhale into the water.
Well, that’s all. Record the time!
Yes, and no inflatable sleeves, circles and fins: this will interfere with future learning to already competent swimming. You taught your child to swim and not be afraid of water, but only a competent coach can teach your child how to swim correctly.
My student, Tatyana Vandysheva, writes:
We went to the pool with my daughter’s girlfriends, one of them had a panic fear of water, it was very surprising and interesting, I have never seen anything like this. I trained my skills acquired in UPP on children. As a result, the second girl learned to dive with her head and even swim at depth in a life jacket. A little more and she would have swum herself. Interestingly, it was not the adjustment that helped, I adjusted it several times and brought it to depth, but the result was still horror in the eyes and “I’m afraid.” As a result, at some point, I calmly said to her “I’m afraid”, “Well, be afraid, but swim.” She had a misunderstanding on her face, and she was afraid in amazement and swam. And I repeated — be afraid and swim, you can be afraid, but be sure to swim. And encouraged — you see, it turns out, you can be afraid and swim. At some point, she forgot to be afraid and just swam. In general, in 2 hours I did with her what 7 years could not do with her.