the fine things

  If only I could swim ”like”  the dolphins  

or perhaps swim “with” the dolphins like this!

Watching him truly enjoying himself in the water, etc got us thinking of enrolling him for swimming lessons. Perhaps then, I, the mom, would also enrol in a refresher course or something!!  Perhaps.  It’s been ages since I last set foot in a pool … I mean swim!

So we were thinking, the earlier he learns to swim, the earlier he learns swimming safety skills, the more equipped he is going to be  in case of an emergency.  The more he feels confident and comfortable in the water too if he knows what he’s doing. Well, the thing is we just want to make sure he enjoys (or comfortable) the water and feels safe. 

I have been ‘googling’ for more information as to what age is exactly the right age for kids to start swimming or start swim lessons and found tons of varying information! The American Academy of Pediatrics  actually recommends parents “not to begin formal swimming lessons for their kids until they are at least 4 years old as that would be the age that children are thought to be developmentally ready for swimming lessons.”  Ian will be four this in less than 2 months and I think he’s ready for ‘lessons’ as in basically being able to follow basic rules and understand what is required.  

Vincent Iannelli,  MD posed this question in his article “Swimming lessons for kids”, “Will starting swim lessons early help your child learn to swim faster?”  “Probably not”, he said, as according to one study, “Children’s readiness for learning front crawl swimming, showed that whether kids ’started lessons at 2, 3 or 4 years of age,’ they learned to swim well at ‘approximately the same mean age of  5 1/2 years.”

There are other reasons why we wanted him to learn swimming, the most important one being safety.  Now which parents would not be happy knowing that their child knows how to stay afloat and swim to safety?  Studies also suggest that swimming is by far one of the best forms of exercise for the human body, so not only will our child get a great workout, he or she will expend some of that never-ending energy! 

 More pictures here    Useful Link:  Rules for Pool