Why Children Should Learn To Swim

Swimming is a valuable skill for both children and adults, but is best learned as a child for a variety of reasons. Swimming is an activity that can be done throughout the year in pools, lakes, and oceans. Different activities can be done in these areas such as boating, diving, swimming and playing in the water. Children should learn to swim for health and safety reasons as well as to enhance personal enjoyment.

Safety

Knowing how to swim is essential for water safety. The Centers for Disease Control cites "formal swimming lessons can prevent young children from drowning." The CDC also found that drowning is the second highest cause of death involving unintentional injuries in children between one and fourteen. Children should be taught to swim in a safe environment, and they should learn not only swimming strokes but basic water safety techniques, such as how to float and tread water for extended periods of time. However, children should always be supervised in the water regardless of their swimming ability.

Physical Development

Swimming can aid physical development in children. Swimming requires coordination of both the arms and the legs, something that many other sports and activities don't offer. Strokes like breaststroke and butterfly involve the arms and legs doing very different motions at the same time. This helps the development of coordination and gross motor skills. In addition, this will help children develop higher level thinking skills as they are forced to think about their movements.

Fitness

Swimming is important for fitness and is one activity that can be done throughout the lifespan. Since swimming is done in the water there is minimal impact on the joints. United States Masters Swimming cites that swimming can aid in the development of both strength and cardiovascular health. Children need this and it teaches them good habits that they can use for the rest of their lives.

Social Opportunities

Enrolling a child in swimming lessons provides them with social opportunities. Most swim lessons are taught in a group and children will learn how to be patient and take their turn. In swim lessons, children learn that rough playing in the water can hurt others and they learn to take responsibility for others while they are swimming. In addition, many children go from swimming lessons to swim team and develop lasting friendships with the people they meet.

Age

It is helpful to teach children to swim while they are young. Many people that don't learn to swim as children develop fear of the water. Not only do they never want to swim, they become dangerous to the others around them when they try to swim as they may pull another swimmer under water to save themselves. Children don't have preconceived notions as to how they should swim and therefore they are easier to teach.