You brought your little ones for swimming lessons weekly, you look and observe and realize that the swimming teacher has been repeating the same drill and exercise for the past weeks of swimming lessons.
It seems as if they aren’t learning anything at all. You feel frustrated, cheated on the behavior of both the kids and the swimming teacher conducting the swimming lessons.
The truth is the kid is learning new things without you realizing, they are developing all is needed to become a good swimmer. Those repetitive ingredients and exercises in learning how to swim comes in building blocks. They are actually building strength, skills, and stamina by little with every swimming session.
People alike adults and children, we acquire skills through consistency and perseverance in learning and practicing. Still, remember how your children learn to walk? They will start off by crawling, gradually trying to rise up and fall few times at home, move onto the outside ground for walking practice and then began to walk eventually. It takes many years of practice to reach this stage and it all happens with consistency and repetitive training.
This same concept applies to learn everything, and learning to swim is no exception. if it takes 4 years for your children to learn how to stand with the given practice time done almost daily. How long do you think your kids need to learn swimming with a weekly practice?
You wouldn’t expect your children to read or able to churn out great novels the moment they get to learn how to write letters right? It takes a great amount of more effort of “repetition” to master any new skill whether it comes to talking, listening, reading, writing, riding a bike, driving a car or learning to swim.
The first few swimming lessons may have got you started if the progression is fast and your kids began to become comfortable in the water and acquired substantial new skills like putting the head into the water, performing independent star float without help and kicking feet. This all happens to kids comfortable with water quickly.
And then progression starts to slow down, almost like hitting a pause, you feel they are not progressing anymore. But in fact they are!
Repetition and redoing all the skills, again and again, build muscle memory and changes the action for good in advancement. It may not look like it weekly and they may not display a lot of progressions. It is just learning to ride a bike, walking or learning to drive, one day it will just click and they will be off!
Different activities possess different difficulties. As swimming lessons, progresses they are introduced into more difficult exercises. This makes them work harder in acquiring all the motor skills needed with the associated new activities.
Not all activities are the same and not all children are the same too. Some might find these activities easy and some might the others manageable. Give them patience and enough repetition to slowly acquire the skills in swimming.
Learning to swim comes in leaps and bounds.
Weekly swimming lessons boost confidence during the play, something you cannot see, observe. You have to feel it, in fact your little ones are gaining confidence in their own abilities, have a better understanding of water, and in their instructor knowing what to do next.
Consistency in swimming over a long period of time is essential to learning. You want them to build on muscle memory, retain the confidence and continuously develop the skills, refining whatever they have learned every week.
The repetition helps it become second nature — plus it’s important for muscle memory and all the physical aspects involved developmentally. So whether it’s in swimming classes or you bringing them to the pool yourself, make it a weekly treat and have some fun.