Getting Kids to Swim
Swimming, on the face of it, is a fun sport and pastime which kids get involved in during the holidays, or when the weather turns nicely warm. It is odd to pick this sport out of so many others and call it a life saver, but that is what learning to swim can be.
Football, skate boarding, cycling and more, are great ways to exercise, but a sad statistic is that drowning is one of the most common causes of accidental deaths among children, and being a goal-scoring striker, or being able to grind or front-side on a skate board are great, but they wouldn’t save a person in trouble in the water.
It is a recognised legal fact that water attracts, particularly children, and you won’t always be watching them. Swimming pools, water parks, and the sea can give children hours of fun and exercise, but until they can swim, neither they, nor you, will relax and get the full enjoyment swimming can offer.
The temptations of water are not entirely obvious to adults. What to them can seem a polluted, dirty and smelly canal, for instance, to kids it may be a mystical and really cool place to make adventures by.
Swimming is not only a life saver, is healthy, fantastic fun, and once someone has learned to swim, it is a skill, a pleasure and an ability that stays with them forever, you won’t see many grandparents on skate boards, nor playing football, but you will see them swimming in swimming pools or in the sea.
It is a particularly healthy exercise, once kids have learned to swim and have the confidence in the water that the ability brings, they can spend hours at a time, with friends or family playing in the water.
Swimming uses pretty much every muscle in the body, in one way or another, and doesn’t have impact on certain areas, such as running would do to the leg and foot joints.
It helps develop heart and lung capacity along with stamina, also helped by repeatedly climbing out of the pool to jump back in, or all that time spent running in and out of the sea, add up up to great exercise in the name of fun.
Being able to swim can open opportunities closed to non-swimmers, such as sailing, or kayaking, wind surfing, or even snorkelling or scuba diving.
Make sure you get your children taught to swim, they may thank you in more ways than one.