By Professor Eileen Africa
Swimming is truly a cradle-to-grave activity. It is easily accessible and beneficial to all individuals, regardless of gender, age, ability, and socio-economic status (Moffatt, 2017a).
The low-impact nature of swimming offers benefits beyond recreation alone. These benefits expand across various areas, from preventing drowning and enhancing safety (WHO, 2014) to promoting overall physical fitness, all while indirectly developing social skills (Howells & Jarman, 2016).
If your child has been attending swimming lessons for some time, you might be questioning whether it’s beneficial to continue these sessions. Are they ready to take a break, or is there more to gain from ongoing lessons, especially during the cold winter months?
Regular attendance in swimming lessons has been shown to prevent the loss of acquired skills that occurs with extended breaks. Additionally, swimming serves as an excellent indoor activity during oppressive winter months, providing children with a safe and engaging way to stay physically active.
Embracing swimming lessons throughout the year, including winter, not only improves swimming and gross motor abilities, but also encourages a lifelong commitment to staying active and healthy.
Continuing Lessons
By continuing their lessons, children refine their techniques, increase their endurance, and become more confident in the water, ensuring their development into strong and capable swimmers. The benefits of both learning to swim and swimming, as an uninterrupted journey, are multifaceted:
Safety First
One of the primary benefits of swimming lessons for children is the emphasis placed on safety throughout the duration of the lesson (Moffatt, 2017a). Additionally, swimming lessons teach children how to react calmly in emergencies, understand the importance of supervised swimming, and respect water rules. These factors lay a strong foundation for lifelong water safety.
Swimming is FUN
Swimming is undoubtedly a fun activity; it’s an excellent way to keep your children active and unplugged from screens, decreasing their participation in sedentary behaviours. It can help children focus and clear their minds after a busy and stressful day. When they achieve goals, whether big or small, it makes them feel accomplished, confident, and proud of what they can do. Through consistent practice, children can fully engage themselves in the water, with each lesson providing a new and exciting adventure. They experience joy when they master new strokes, dive for toys, and race their friends, which heightens their enthusiasm and motivation to continue learning.
enjoyment and maintains their interest (Hopple, 2018). With each lesson bringing a sense of accomplishment, children are provided with a positive and fulfilling experience. Moreover, uninterrupted swimming lessons encourage friendships where children bond over shared challenges and victories in the pool, creating everlasting memories (Moffatt, 2017b).
Develop and Maintain Skills
Swimming lessons are a fantastic way for children to build a wide range of skills that extend beyond the water. These skills enhance their physical strength, coordination, and endurance (Howells & Jarman, 2016). Additionally, swimming lessons teach important life skills like discipline, perseverance, and goal setting, as children strive to improve their performance and reach new milestones.
The structured environment of swimming classes also promotes auditory skills such as listening and the ability to follow verbal instructions (Jorgensen, 2013). When combining all these skills together, children are not only made better swimmers but are also allowed the opportunity to experience improvements to their overall development, instilling a sense of confidence and accomplishment that they can carry into other areas of their lives (Charmas & Gromisz, 2019).
Repetition is a key factor in swimming and should not be undermined. A decline in water confidence and swim skills can be evident even after only a few months without lessons. Repetition and consistency can help reinforce swim skills and increase muscle memory, allowing them to become second nature (Mally, 2009).
Physical Fitness and Technique
Swimming is like a full-body workout for children and has been characterized as the ultimate “all-in-one fitness package”, highlighting that it engages most of the body’s muscles (Turley, 1997). Continuation of swimming lessons is crucial for developing and refining technique. As children progress through lessons, they develop essential swimming techniques such as proper breathing, efficient movement through the water, and development of various strokes: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly (Lahart & Metsios, 2017).
Swimming is like mastering any sport; practice makes perfect. So, let’s encourage children to continue their swimming journey. It’s not just about swimming better; it’s about staying safe, building confidence, developing skills, and having lots of fun in the water!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Professor Eileen Africa
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences
University of Stellenbosch
Eileen Africa is a Paediatric Movement Scientist, academic, and researcher with a deep
commitment to advancing children’s movement development and holistic wellbeing. She is an
Associate Professor at Stellenbosch University and heads up the Kinderkinetics postgraduate
programme, where she is trains the next generation of specialists in child movement science.
She is the founder and director of the Stellenbosch Kinderkinetics practice, as well as the
Learn-to-Swim programme at Stellenbosch University, where her work brings together
research, teaching, and hands-on practice in a meaningful and applied way.