by Ed Pemberton
Picture this: It’s a hot summer day in July. You and your friends are relaxing at the pool with your kids. The mixture of cool water and hot sun is perfect. The kids are having a blast in their swimming and you are enjoying the much needed break. Maybe you live near a lake or have a boat and your kids regularly play in the water while wearing their lifejacket. You feel that the children are “safe” and at least getting acclimated to the water and will surely lean to “really swim” in their own good time. What could possibly be wrong with this picture??
If you are asking yourself that question, think about these 10 things:
l. INSTINCTS. Your child is born with an instinct to survive in water. Most everyone will move his arms and legs to swim to the surface of water. This instinct is lost after just a few times of using floatation devices. Instead, your child will wait for his body to “pop” to the surface.
2. A WET FACE. In a floatation device, one is usually only under water for half a second. The device does its job of popping the swimmer up quickly. Proper swimming requires 5 seconds of a person either holding their breath or exhaling with their face under water. If the head is up, as it is in a floatation device, the hips and legs sink underwater. It takes a long time to teach a child that they have to keep their face under water for the 5 seconds required while swimming the crawl stroke.
3. CLOSENESS TO WATER. Floatation devices usually hold a child’s head high above the water. Often the face and head stay dry. In swimming, you must get a breath close to the surface of the water. You cannot lift your head fur out of the water to get good quick g=breaths. In swim classes, children who have work floatation devices will struggle to get the head so fur out of the water that their legs sink to a point where they cannot swim.
True story: a boy who grew up on the beach in Virginia swam in the ocean every day all summer in a life jacket with his head 10 inches over the surface of the water from the ages of3 to 6. His family moved inland and he did not swim for 2 years. He had to repeat the same level class three times to get comfortable getting a breath with his face close to the water.
4. BODY POSITION. Floatation devices usually keep the child vertical. The more exposure a child has to being vertical, the harder it is for them to feel comfortable in a horizontal position that is necessary.
The proper swimming position is horizontal with the head, hips, hands, and heels at the surface. The head controls the body position. IF a child lifts the head up the legs tend to go deeper into the water. If the hips are 12 inches under water, the drag (resistance) on the body is doubled. This means the child will have to work twice as hard to move the same distance through the water.
When stressed (fearful) children who have been vertical in the water will instinctively do a bicycle kick that will pull their legs underwater rather than splash at the surface where they should be. In the vertical position they will not be able to swim or stay afloat.
5. STRESS. In times of stress a person will go back to the first thing they have learned. If a floatation device has always kept them afloat even if they do nothing, then they will do nothing even if they are not wearing the device.
A few years ago in a college basketball tournament the star player had the ball. His team was behind by one point. They had 5 seconds left in the game. He got the ball and was in position to shoot a jump shot, a shot he had successfully made for years. The crowd was WILD! Everyone was on their feet and the noise was deafening. He worked clear but instead of shooting as he had done for years, he got very low with his elbow near his knee as he lowered his shoulder under the ball like he had done as a 6 yea old child shooting at a 10 foot basket. The ball flew into the bleachers. In time of extreme stress he reverted to the first thing he ever learned. The same thing will more than likely happen when a person panics in water. This may be the reason good swimmers drown when they accidentally fall into the water.
6. PANIC. A child may jump or fall into the water without the floats on and panic. As silly as it sounds, this the benefits are much greater than just water ability when you consider a lifetime of exercise and a feeling of self worth that comes from confidence of knowing how to swim. has happened many times. A child bas been playing in the water all morning in his swimmies. Mom calls him over for lunch taking the swimmies off so he can eat. After lunch the child’s friend yells “last one in is a rotten egg”. Always up for a challenge, your child runs and jumps in the pool, forgetting his swimmies. He panics and luckily gets pulled from the pool. If help had not been available your child would probably panic and drown.
7. UNRELIABLE. Floatation devices can also come off in the middle of the water or deflate. This could easily end in a drowning disaster. A mother with manicured nails was playing with her 2 year old son who was wearing a float ring in the deep area of a pool. She was a marginal swimmer. Her nails pierced the ring and it deflated immediately. The child grabbed her around the neck. Luckily, a lifeguard was alert and rescued them.
8. INSECURITY. Children lose confidence in themselves and become dependent on the flotation devices. They become afraid to swim. Usually, children make progress each lesson. Scotty (age 5) had swam 25 feet across my pool on one occasion on lesson 2 of his Advanced Beginner Class. He had been in my program since he was I year old. I really wanted him to be successful. On lessons 3 and 4 he was very fearful and would not attempt to swim even just half the distance. I was perplexed. I often lecture the parents about the bad judgment of wearing floatation devices. After class I went to the mother to inquire and find the problem.
Mom answered rather demonstrably, “We went camping. I wasn’t going to let him swim in the lake without that life jacket!” He would have been much better off going on a hike and not going in the lake.
9. FLATFEET. Children wearing floatation devices develop movement through the water by pushing their feet flat against the water. To swim three or the four competitive stokes the foot must be extended (pointed). The foot flat push makes learning the proper and efficient extended position very difficult. The more hours in floats, the more difficult it is to break the habit.
10. SOCIAL ADVANTAGE. Socially, the child will feel inadequate and may be ostracized by his or he peers if he or she is seen wearing floatation devices. Peer pressure is a great part of developing personality. A child depending on floats in the water can quickly be a target of other children’s unkind comments as to maturity and physical abilities.
We recommend getting adjusted to the water and learning to like it. Practice in the bathtub. Get the children to love water in their face. If they say “I hate water in my face,” You reply, “You love water in your face. Everybody does. You just do not know it yet.” A lot of children and adults have a deep fear of the water that can easily be overcome with just learning that water can be fun instead of just a scary situation. When a child jumps into the water let their heads go under and get to the position where he learns to swim up to the surface by himself.
Always have the child be doing something to stay afloat. Maintain the child’s instinct to move the arms and legs while in the water. Don’t let the floatation device keep them totally afloat. Use a TRAINING KICKBOARD that will let them realize they must kick their feet to move through the water. They learn to stay horizontal and keep their chin in the water to keep themselves afloat.
Try to get in the swimming position (horizontal) as often as possible. If using floatation devices a play board is recommended so the person is still horizontal and can kick their feet at the same time.
Start swimming lessons as early as possible. Get a professional program with professional instructors. If in the water as babies they are less likely to have fear of it growing up. Beginner classes usually start around the age three, but each class is adjusted to ability. Support the learning at home with bath tub and dry land practice as well as giving appropriate praise for effort during class.
