Matt'nMeg'sMom
Former Disney Mom
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2008
- Messages
- 398
To the OP: Don't bother with those swimming "lessons" if they're just mommy-and-me water play time. Those classes don't teach your child anything, so why upset him? You should definitely withdraw him.
HOWEVER, if your child were enrolled in real swimming lessons, I would encourage you to tough it out.
35 years ago, I was a child in the original studies that proved infants and toddlers could learn to swim well. My mother was a swim instructor, and collected data for the study over the course of many years. We proved that children CAN be taught to swim, provided we simply raise our expectations. At 2 years old, I could dive off the one meter board and swim through the deep end completely unassisted. At 5, I was on the diving team.
In 2008-2009, the study results were duplicated by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine - finding once again that toddlers could and SHOULD be taught to swim for safety reasons. The study specifies that "water-play" classes do not count. Only real swimming lessons are effective. Read the results here: http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/PreventiveCare/13075 The evidence also proves that real swim training greatly decreases the rate of drowning for 1-4 year olds.
Nothing replaces the value of an observant lifeguard in terms of water-safety, but please don't believe the myth that children under 5 somehow "can't" or "shouldn't" be taught to swim. That's completely untrue.
I know I'm getting off the topic and on the soapbox. Sorry.
To the OP, best of luck.
HOWEVER, if your child were enrolled in real swimming lessons, I would encourage you to tough it out.
35 years ago, I was a child in the original studies that proved infants and toddlers could learn to swim well. My mother was a swim instructor, and collected data for the study over the course of many years. We proved that children CAN be taught to swim, provided we simply raise our expectations. At 2 years old, I could dive off the one meter board and swim through the deep end completely unassisted. At 5, I was on the diving team.
In 2008-2009, the study results were duplicated by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine - finding once again that toddlers could and SHOULD be taught to swim for safety reasons. The study specifies that "water-play" classes do not count. Only real swimming lessons are effective. Read the results here: http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/PreventiveCare/13075 The evidence also proves that real swim training greatly decreases the rate of drowning for 1-4 year olds.
Nothing replaces the value of an observant lifeguard in terms of water-safety, but please don't believe the myth that children under 5 somehow "can't" or "shouldn't" be taught to swim. That's completely untrue.
I know I'm getting off the topic and on the soapbox. Sorry.
To the OP, best of luck.
