Caden Learns to Swim

This post is all about a boy I am currently teaching. His name is Caden and he is seven years old. Caden took swim lessons at a facility for almost one year and could still not swim on his back (at all) nor could he swim more than two feet on his front. His mom decided that the way he was being taught was just not right for him, so she came to me.

In our first lesson, I started with teaching him how to safety turn. This is something I have all of my students learn on how to get into the water, no matter how old they are. A safety turn is when the student puts both hands on the wall and doesn’t let go while he or she turns her body into the water. This is good to teach because when kids do this enough it turns into habit and then they are never surprised when they can’t touch the ground because they are still holding the wall. I then did a quick evaluation of his swimming skills. After that, I started with teaching him to swim on his front. I had him put a noodle under his armpits and reminded him to keep his feet on top of the water. The reason Caden can’t swim more than two feet by himself is because his feet are below him and not behind him when he swims. This just means he doesn’t move forward at all and then his face goes under because he loses momentum. I also gave Caden a kick board to use. We went back and forth from end to end just practicing kicking. He eventually got that his feet needed to stay up high! He began moving very well with the kick board, which was great because when I first gave him the kick board he was at a standstill. He wouldn’t move unless I pulled him.

In the next few lessons I started taking the noodle away from him. I continued to remind him to keep his feet on top of the water so he could propel forward. A fun game I play with kids when I want them to swim on their own and they aren’t fond of the idea is Tag. I tell them that I bet they can’t tag me and start to “run away.” The kids get very excited about the idea of tagging the teacher, so they push off the wall at full force and race after me. This is exactly what I did with Caden and for the first time he swam ten feet all by himself. By the fourth lesson Caden was able to swim fifteen feet, while trying to tag me.

I also worked on Caden’s back with him. Caden sinks automatically when he is on his back because he resorts to the position of “sitting in a chair” in order to keep his head out of the water. I taught him belly up and head back. A great tip with teaching back swimming is first teaching floating. I tell the kids to look like a starfish with legs and arms out along with a Santa belly. When the kids focus on making their stomachs big it forces them to arch their back, which helps them float. Also, a great tip for helping kids look up when on their back is asking them what color your eyes are. I stood just far enough back that Caden had to put his head into the water up to his hairline in order to see my eye color. I also started with holding his shoulders, and as he got stronger I moved to his arms, and then finally his hands. When you hold a child’s hands while he or she is floating, that means he or she is just about ready to do it all on his or her own. You can play a little by letting go and then grabbing their hands again to see if they can do it all by themselves. Caden was able to back float by himself after six lessons for five full seconds. That was a huge improvement for him!

All children will have different needs when it comes to teaching swimming. That is why it is so important to modify lessons and not teach them exactly the same to every child. Caden’s right eye is smaller than his left eye. He also can’t see very much at all through his right eye, which means he counts deeply on his left eye to see. He also hates when water gets in his right eye, because it irritates it. I teach most of my students to squeeze their eyes really tight when they get wet, blink hard, and then open them. This means that if they were to ever fall in, and they were too frazzled to wipe their eyes, they would know how to open them. A lot of my students are able to do this, however because Caden has difficulties with his right eye, he was not. Instead I taught him how to wipe his eyes using only one hand. Most beginner swimmers try to use both hands when water gets in them, but they are not strong enough to use only their legs which means they end up sinking and rewetting their eyes. When you teach a child to use only one hand (and it doesn’t matter which hand that is) then they are able to use the other to continue swimming. This can be a hard concept for younger students, so I always tell the parents to practice it in the bathtub or shower. Whenever he or she needs to wipe his or her face, he or she can only do it with one hand. Over time and a lot of practice, Caden got the hang of wiping his eyes with one hand and swimming with the other.

Caden has come a long way! He can do so much, even after so few lessons. When you teach a child how to swim it involves modification, patience, and fun!