By Smarty Guest Blogger John Kirk, owner Little Otter Swim School
Swimming is fun and healthy when it is safe. The only way to ensure that is through lessons. Year-round lessons are proven to result in better young swimmers who can handle themselves around water. This makes it even more critical to maintain year-round swim lessons – not just lessons for the summer.
Sometimes one activity may need to take priority over another. Unfortunately, swimming lessons are sometimes put off for a “more convenient” time that never comes. By making swimming lessons available to students year round, there is no need to put off learning this important life skill.
The importance of being able to swim well should never be minimized. These skills can save the child’s or even someone else’s life. When swimming is a regular activity, it provides incredible physical, mental and developmental benefits.
Swimming is a total mind and body experience. It is exercise and it is recreational. It can be simple relaxed strokes and intensive and rigorous training. But whatever the level, it takes time to master the movements, the kicks, the rhythm and the breathing techniques to be a safe swimmer. With year round swimming lessons, avid students can quickly become proficient swimmers and casual students can take advantage of less chaos in which to master their skills. Regardless of the type student, it takes more time develop these skills than just a summer.
Protect your child from drowning.
Participating in swimming year-round is the best way to make sure that your child is as safe as possible from water dangers. Year-round swimmers understand the respect that every person should have for water. Just like swimming should not be a summer activity, drowning is not just a summer danger.
So even with all of the activities that fall brings, it is important to sign your child up for swim lessons. Taking swimming lessons in the fall, can work to your advantage.
Research from the Centers for Disease Control have found that children who participate in lessons are 88% less likely to drown.
More choices.
Registering for swim lessons during the less busy times also gives you higher potential for getting the classes at the time that best fits your schedule.
The weather doesn’t matter.
Even during rain or the chill of winter, your child has a warm place to get some exercise when they are swimming in their warm indoor pool in swimming class.
A consistent physical activity.
Swimming lessons fit just as easily into yours and your child’s schedule as any other activity – art, soccer or karate – but you child will come home clean from swimming lessons.
Prevent need to re-learning swim skills next summer.
Children don’t retain all that they learned from one summer to the next. Maintaining lessons year-round makes sure your child doesn’t back-tracking at the beginning of each summer.
A plus for positive personal growth.
Swimming lessons early in life provide a platform for a child’s comfort in water. Older children who are just learning to swim struggle with fear of water before they can develop skills to be a swimmer.
It won’t wear your kids out.
Children actually benefit from swimming as an outlet to vent energy – and this helps to prevent the lethargy that being cooped up in the winter can inspire. Swimming has the ability to invigorate the body and mind like no other exercise. It works all muscles in the body evenly on both sides and is both aerobic and strength building. And children who establish healthy exercise habits grow into healthy adults.
Winter swimmers are not prone to sickness.
Children who swim year-round are actually less likely to be sick than those who are less active. Contrary to popular belief, swimming doesn’t cause inner ear infections and swimmer’s ear (outer ear infections) can be easily prevented by thoroughly drying the ears.
Benefits for the long-haul.
It is proven that early swimming helps children develop in three key areas: physically, mentally, and emotionally. Children who swim consistently are stronger and more coordinated and scored higher for intelligence and problem solving. Obviously, swimming skills have benefits that reach far outside of the ability to swim. Children who swim year-round are more self-disciplined and have greater motivation and confidence to succeed. They also have a better aptitude for consistent goal setting, learning, and achievement – and self-respect.
Swimming is also just about the only sport that can be enjoyed into senior years. So helping a child develop these skills gives them lifelong pleasure and gives them a skill that they need to enjoy and be safe when participating in water-related activities such as diving, fishing, and boating.
Swimming all year builds these basic life skills in a way that is fun and comfortable for the student and reassuring and convenient to parents. Most reputable swim schools – including Little Otter – provide year-round options, so there is no reason to put this off – the “better time” is this year!
Little Otter Swim Schools’ expertise and passion for teaching swimming to children makes the two locations of the schools the perfect place for children to learn to swim. It is also our passion to provide information to parents that is valuable in the lives of swimmers. For these reasons, Little Otter is considered by many to be one of the Charlotte area’s best place to learn to swim – Little Otter Swim School with two locations (Matthews or Huntersville) where the passion for teaching quality swimming is obvious.
For more information on Little Otter Swim School, visit their web site www.littleotterswim.com.
