When is it safe to say my child can swim they don’t need swim lessons anymore?
We recommend all parents ask themselves these questions:
- Can my child doggy paddle/tread water in the Leopold Swim School Pool? Most answers would probably be yes.
- Can my child doggy paddle/tread water in another pool that is not familiar to them (eg. Kardinia pool)? Most answers would be I think so but not entirely sure.
- Can my child doggy paddle/tread water in a river or in the ocean with any unknown conditions such as a drift or current or much worse a rip? Unless your child has completed our level 4 most answers would be no.
This is very important to the water safety of your child. You may say we don’t visit rivers and when we go to the beach we stay in the shallows. But as we know children are very adventurous and sometimes they push their own boundaries. For example, at the beach they may venture out further than their capabilities. If this was to happen we would want them to have the best possible chance to swim in the deeper water and bring themselves back to shore.
We must think now for our children’s futures. We would want them to feel safe and confident in the water if they ever wanted to go surfing later in life.
We believe a child must be able to swim 400m to say they may be confident and competent to save themselves, if they ever had to.
Learning to swim is a very long and sometimes slow process which requires children and parents to be persistent in achieving their swimming goals.
Parents often ask us, how long will it take my child to learn to swim?
The answer is from approx. 6 months of age to the age of 10 or 12, if they have had continual swim lessons. As we know all children learn at different rates. This approximation could be quicker or longer, depending on each child’s learning abilities.