Splish Splash Swim Lessons understands and appreciates that learning how to swim is not one size fits all.  Our top priority is to make sure your little ones are safe and comfortable in the water.  Every swimmer will learn at a different pace.  Some children will jump right into the water without hesitation while others will take several lessons before they ever leave the steps.  It is important to start acclimating children to the water as young as possible, which is why we recommend putting your child in the pool for the first time between the ages of 6 - 12 months.  Aside from getting in the water, another huge factor in the pace at which swim lessons progress depends on how comfortable your child is being with their swim instructor.  For many babies and toddlers, swim lessons will be the first time they are away from mom and dad and are with a non-family member.  This can be stressful! It's your baby's first time in the pool.  In some cases, the first several lessons can be spent getting used to being in a new persons care.  It doesn't mean progress isn't being made. 

           Once your child is at the point where they're comfortable in the water, but never swam, is when we can start introducing new skills.  In this stage, the main focus is making sure swim lessons are a positive experience for everyone involved.  Water can be very frightening for kids and parents too.  It is our job to provide comfort and show children that we are there to teach them water safety.  We want your children to feel safe and protected in our arms during swim lessons.  And we want parents to feel like their children are in good hands.  Once a solid bond has been developed between swimmer and swim instructor, we can move into learning what to do in the water.  The first steps are to see how the child does getting into the pool, putting their mouth and nose in the water, and splashing with their hands and feet.  At this age, it is very important to get children laying on their backs in the water.  Back float is one of the most important water safety skills because it allows for kids to take a breath and it also saves energy while waiting for help. 

          At this point we have moved beyond comfort in the water and shift the focus to building strength and endurance.  It takes a lot of energy for small children to keep themselves above water without help.  For many kids, this is the stage they have to work the hardest at.   When your child is able to swim short distances unassisted, the only thing holding them back from going farther may be their strength.  During this stage we will be doing a lot of repetition and trying to increase how for your child can swim each time they go back and forth across the pool.  As they get stronger and build their muscles, they will be able to go father on their own with fewer breaks.  Swimming at home in between swim lessons and practicing swimming on their own will help speed up the process to becoming a stronger swimmer. 

Swim lessons can start to transition from learning to swim into swimming.  Now that we're really swimming, we can start swimming underwater, jumping in and swimming across, and playing games in the pool to keep building strength.  Games and activities can keep them swimming on their own and working towards getting stronger while having a good time and enjoying swim lessons.  We will alternate between swimming on our back and swimming on our belly until swimmers can do both fully unassisted.  Lessons will start to become more independent so that children can gain confidence to swim to the wall rather than grabbing onto the swim instructor.  One of the biggest habits to break at this point will be the child's instinct to grab onto the swim instructor even though they are swimming just fine on their own.  We will really start encouraging "swim to the edge" rather than "swim to me." 

We're ready to start improving technique!  We will transition into using proper swim language for things such as front crawl and backstroke.  Swimmers will learn proper arm pathways on front crawl and how to keep their legs straight during flutter kicks.  At this point we like to see children doing everything unassisted so that the instructor can focus on watching and giving verbal instruction for improvement.  We will work on treading in deep water, changing directions while swimming, and pushing off the wall in a streamline position when starting to swim across.  Students will be encouraged to go under water frequently and practice swimming underwater to get diving rings.  If students are ready, we will slowly introduce higher level strokes and skills such as flip turns. 

The final phase of swim lessons is to prep for swim team.  At this phase, children will develop an understanding of front crawl (freestyle), back stroke, breast stroke, and butterfly.  Students should be able to do a sitting dive, kneeling dive, and modified flip turn.  Standing dives and fully developed flip turns will be practiced with repetition.  Different drills and sets will be brought to lessons so that students can breakdown each skill in a stroke to perfect it on its own.  This idea is that after completing this level, your child would be ready for a high school swim team.