7 Reasons Why All Kids Should Know How to Swim
The benefits to know how to swim are endless and can impact your child’s life for many years to come. Here are the 7 most important reasons your child should learn to swim! And who knows, you may find your kids has a real passion for swimming and find yourself at an Olympic Games sometime in the near future.
Promotes safety
Even if you don’t have a pool or don’t visit the water often, learning how to swim can helps kids in situations where they may accidentally fall into the water. The CDC states that 2 children under the age of 14 die from drowning every day, but knowing how to swim decreases their chances of drowning significantly.
It’s fun!
Swimming is fun! Once your child knows how to swim swim, their experience at the pool will be so much better. And honestly, so will yours! They can play with friends, play games, and enjoy the outdoors without fear of the water. And you can trust them, knowing they have the skills they need.
Keeps them healthy
Swimming is a full-body workout and can help your kids stay healthy and burn energy. A long day at the pool swimming is one of the best ways to tire out kids who have a surplus of energy. Swimming is excellent for kids because it is a low-impact sport which means that it is gentler on your child’s joints, like their knees and ankles. It also provides them with essential skills like coordination, strength, and cardiovascular endurance—all while they are having fun!
They learn a life-long skill
Learning how to swim as a child helps you throughout your life. And studies have found that it is much easier to learn to swim as a child! Not only do adults have busy lives that tend to take precedence over learning new skills, but our brains actually find it more challenging to take in new information. This is also why kids learn new languages much quicker if they are taught before the age of 12.
Overcoming fear
One of the hardest things to overcome when teaching your kids to know how to swim, is a fear of the water. So, it is best to start teaching them how to swim before that fear develops, if it ever does. Teaching your kids how to swim while they are still young instills self-esteem and comfort in the water. It’s important that young swimmers are confident in their abilities in the water, so they can continue to feel confident throughout their lives.
Get smarter
A study from Australia researched the effects of swimming on children ages 3-5 years old. They found that those who learned how to swim during that time tended to have higher scores in reading, math, story recall, oral expression, visual motors skills, and understanding directions than those that didn’t learn to swim. They found that some of the children who learned to swim were developmentally 20 months ahead of those who didn’t learn to swim. That’s a huge difference. And while they aren’t sure exactly what caused the difference, we can now say that swimming might make your child smarter!
Socializing
When swimming as a child, there is usually a social element involved. Whether you have friends or family over at your pool, are at the beach, a public pool, or are taking a fun field trip from school, water activities usually involve more than one person. Water activities also usually include games for kids. Playing games with other children around the pool is a great way to build social skills. Feeling confident because they know how to swim, helps them build confidence when interacting with other kids in social situations at the pool.
