DIY Teach Your Child How to Swim Skill #5: Arm Pulls
Skill #5: Arm Pulls
Goal: To help your child understand the motion and calmly move around the water. No beating the water up!
Remember to continue practicing Skill #1: Get Your Face Wet, Skill #2: Blow Bubbles, Skill #3: Front Float and Skill #4: Front Glide with Kicks every time you go to the pool. Learning how to swim is a lifelong process. You are helping your child foster a healthy relationship with water, which will benefit him positively for the rest of his life.
How to do Arm Pulls
This is my favorite skill to teach! It is so much fun and kids can really use their imaginations to make it interesting. In this skill, we are basically adding arms to Skill #4 (Front glide with kicks). Start by sitting on the steps of the pool with your child and practicing your arms together. Put your fingers together, then reach and pull your arms through the water one at a time. Use your hands to create ‘scoops’ and pull the water toward you.
Make it FUN – scoop ice cream, paint rainbows in the sky, high five the sun, use big dinosaur arms! Remember that we are focusing on survival and comfort level in the pool, not training for the Olympics. So if your child’s technique isn’t perfect, it’s okay. In fact, children may not be physically able to lift their arms out of the water. The stroke doesn’t have to be pretty; it just has to get them to safety! If the pool is shallow enough, children can practice using their big arms to reach and pull the water while walking. This is wonderful for balance and motor skill development.As an incentive, throw a rubber ducky or any floating pool toy for your child to “swim” to. He can reach and pull to the toy and you can celebrate when he reaches it. High five! The goal is to move forward horizontally.
Quick tip: Avoid “beating up” the water and frantically thrashing. Try my technique:
Me: “Are you angry with the water?”
Child: “No.”
Me: “Are you sure? You’re beating it up! Be gentle to the water. It’s your friend.”
Child: “It is?”
Me: “Yes! If you are nice to it, it will hold you up.”
The water really is our friend and we want to create a healthy relationship with it. Use these skills to do that. They are being introduced in isolation, so practice them alone, then put them together to excel learning. Always practice horizontal position with the face in the water blowing bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles.Practice. Practice. Practice.
* The instructional methods discussed are based on my personal teaching philosophy. This is one of many ways to teach swimming. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
RESOURCES
- Check out the Do-it-Yourself Teach Your Child How to Swim eBook
- Visit the our Learn to Swim Shop
- Download the FREE Safer Swimming Bundle
- Subscribe to our Youtube Channel