Teach your kids to swim

[tashamjoy]

I strongly believe that basic survival swimming is a life skill. I believe it is something like learning to walk, ride a bike a part of life. I hear on the news of people drowning and feel strongly that this is preventable. When i was a child i was put in swim lessons and am grateful that i am able to swim as i am 22 years old and many of my close friends cannot swim at all!!! Basically they stand in the child section and thats it!! People please try to teach your children to swim it could save their lives. I understand that many people do not have time or money to invest in this and feels like an activity but just may help you when you get into a life threatening situation

[kimber62372]

I believe in this too! I was self taught to swim at an early age of 4 or 5 yrs old. My son who is now 7, never took lessons and I am not around a pool enough to even know if he can jump in without freaking out. He was learning for a little while one summer 2 yrs ago but then we stopped going because it was my sisters house and now she moved too far away. I think I will sign him up this summer for lessons just to be on the safe side. Now, when you say like riding a bike...lol...I am ashamed to say if I got on a bike today, i would fall over and swimming in the deep end freaks me out! I used to be so good at both.

[lvstephanie]

Swimming is actually a great workout activity too. Because the water helps support your weight, it isn't as hard on the joints as other activities like running. Also, the water helps cool you off, so you don't overheat and tire yourself out as quickly. Finally swimming exercises many different muscles, not just leg muscles as when you run.

Because it is gentle on your joints, many people will continue to swim even after they've started to age and have trouble just walking. In college, I used to lifeguard as a part of my work-study and we'd tend to get a lot of elderly people from the community come in to swim laps. They might hobble walking over to the pool, but once they got in, they swam much more gracefully and could go for long periods of time.

[raven1114]

I agree, I think it's very important to learn at least basic swimming skills.

[nannycoe1]

I can't swim, but I made sure my kids learned when they were young.

[moon29]

i have never learned how to swim and its unlikely that my son will either simply because he has eczema so bad that we have to limit his showers to once or twice and week and he cant even take baths so nope to the pool.

[BMaston12]

I strongly believe that basic survival swimming is a life skill. I believe it is something like learning to walk, ride a bike a part of life. I hear on the news of people drowning and feel strongly that this is preventable. When i was a child i was put in swim lessons and am grateful that i am able to swim as i am 22 years old and many of my close friends cannot swim at all!!! Basically they stand in the child section and thats it!! People please try to teach your children to swim it could save their lives. I understand that many people do not have time or money to invest in this and feels like an activity but just may help you when you get into a life threatening situation

I agree. Kids need to learn how to swim just so they won't drown. They also need to not be afraid of the water. Most kids who can't swim are afraid of the water. It isa survival skill no one should be without.
BMaston12

[jcalexis]

I've thinking about it for a while. This summer my daughter is definitely going to learn how to swim.

[southernhorizons]

I wish I was taught to swim when I was a kid. Unfortunately I'll probably never know how to swim now.

[bowrunner]

It's very important for kids to learn to swim as it can cost them their life if they don't know how to swim.  Even adults should learn how to swim if they didn't learn as children.  They probably won't be very good at it but it might save their life sometime.

[sak4kat]

I too agree it is a life skill all should learn.  Many accidents can and could be prevented but there are those few events where even the best of swimmers can't take on some currents - or those cases when they're out drinking with friends and accidents happen.  My oldest sister taught me basic swim skills when I was about 6 years old.  She worked with me every summer.  When I had my own children I enrolled them in swim class.  While coaching gymnastics one summer through a local park district I paid one of the older kids to watch my 2.  She took them to the park district pool regularly.  On a day off I nearly gasped when I realized they were both going down a water slide and swimming to the ladder.  I didn't know she had continued to work with them and there swim skill progressed that far.  Now my youngest hasn't been exposed to swim lesson's or water of much depth at all for that matter.  You make a good point- it's pricy but it's one of those things I need to invest in for her.

[crisstar]

I wish I had learned to swim as a kid 

As an adult I find going near pools very frightening. I even had private swim lessons as an adult and I had to give that up because my fear was inhibiting my progress to learn. 

Maybe one day I'll get brave and take lessons again.

[aflyingmonkey]

I agree.   I took lessons every summer when I was a child through the city park services, so the price to learn was really cheap (and still is).    One good thing my parents did. 

[greenthumbjan]

I paid the pool's lifeguard to teach them. They took the lessons yearly, until they could pass the test.  They were cute, scared, and cold but well worth it, it was $50.00 each and each year yup it took a couple. 

[davidh121]

I had semi private lessons when I was little, so I instilled this policy of learning to swim at a young age as well when I had my daughter. It's surprising sometimes how many people do not know how to swim at my age and younger. I use to think this was a requirement in school, but doesn't seem to always be the case. I think it's an important skill.