Smart Swans: Swimmings Impact on Development
By: Christina Pasetta
Many factors foster intelligent and well adjusted kids: A foundation of love and support, being surrounded by positive influences and great role models, and feeling secure enough to explore while taking chances. Learning to swim requires all of these factors and more!
The Swimming Swan knows you want the very best future for your loved ones. We take our roles as instructors very seriously, understanding the pivotal model we provide for learners. Not only are we educators, positively reinforcing the great qualities we see, but we’re cheerleaders, encouraging courage with each new bold accomplishment.
Recent studies (and years of our own anecdotal evidence) have proven the incredible developmental benefits of learning to swim at a young age (2-5yrs).
Between honing motor skills, literacy, risk-taking, and mathematics, young swimmers are better prepared for the classroom than their non-swimming peers (regardless of socio-economic, or other factors normally affecting differences).
Aside from preparing young minds for school, swimming opens doors often overlooked. My own personal experience working with those in the entertainment industry highlight some interesting perspectives of actors, crew, and those in production. Mike* was a prominent actor on an amazing show featuring the ocean. He had reluctantly but amazingly performed incredible scenes with very limited swimming skills and little confidence. As an adult without the ability to swim not only did it hinder his potential acting roles, but made him feel unable to swim with his family, at parties, and beach.
Why close the door to great jobs such as acting, camera work, nannying, underwater welding, marine biology, adventure tour guides, lifeguarding, and so many more? In addition, why limit your own adventures scuba diving, snorkeling, cave exploration, surfing, cliff jumping, etc? And very importantly, why avoid the amazing health benefits of swimming and swimming related activities like aqua fitness, synchronized swimming, waterpolo, lap swim, and other all-ages physical-fitness.
Keep the doors of opportunity open for yourself, your loved ones, and those in your community - give them the gift of unlocking the whole world- water too!
In a future posts we will dive deeper into healthy, life-long swimming impacts for our senior swans’ elder fitness. But for now the studies show, swimming is a perfect way to set up your learner for lifelong success, starting with first fun bubbles to relieving achy-bodies through buoyancy.
We have come far from the days of the negative-reinforcement techniques of “sink or swim” lessons, terrifying more than helping young learners in the water. The Swimming Swan is focused on a holistic approach to swimming, considering each student’s whole person and their experiences in and out of the water. Each person has a unique story. Instructors can glean insights from these stories, writing new chapters together with compassion and an openness to new experiences.
Formative experiences like learning to swim are memories we rely on, building our confidence in the face of adversity.
Safety is the primary reason we begin to chart the waters formerly unknown and potentially frightening, but a secondary reason we should familiarize ourselves to swimming is the wonderful awakening within.
Please join us, opening potentials, brightening minds, and enjoying all the water can give!
For more information on our child swimming lessons, please see our Swimming Lessons for Children page.
This article is brought to you by: The Swimming Swan
