Imagine that the phone rings while you’re outside with your 1-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son as they play by the pool. You quickly run to pick up the phone before the answering machine clicks on. Just as you greet the person on the other end, you hear your 1-year-old cry out for you.
Glancing out the window, you see that she has fallen into your pool and is floating in the water on her back as she kicks to the side of the pool. Had it not been for her early lessons in swimming, this incident, like many others, could have been fatal.
Living in the heat of Southern California induces the unavoidable parental fear of drowning. With summer on its way, any form of cooling off, especially swimming, is enticing to everyone. One common question and concern posed by many parents with young children is: When should our child start swimming lessons?
According to Jon Alpert of Waterworks Aquatics in Irvine, the best time for parents to enroll their children in swimming lessons is before their first birthday. “We start kids here at 4 months old,” he says.
Exposing your children to water at a young age allows them to grow up with water so that they do not fear it when they get older. Their coordination, as well as the development of their judgment of distance, will improve. The primary goal is to teach young children to float on their back and hold their head above water.
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