Strengthen Physical Literacy at the Pool or Lake!

Building up a child’s confidence in a particular skill is a component of physical literacy, which is even more important when it comes to swimming. Being physically literate when it comes to swimming can also help your child stay safe around water. Drowning is the leading cause of death for children under the age of 4. At Champions for Life Foundation, we strongly encourage parents to enrol their children in swimming lessons. But we have to go beyond that. In Quebec, 70% of drownings occur in natural bodies of water. As parents, it is essential to expose your children to a variety of aquatic settings, in addition to having them take swimming lessons. Supervising your children at all times is absolutely necessary, even if they know how to swim or are taking lessons. It is also important to instil the idea of never swimming alone in children. It only takes about 15 seconds for a drowning to occur. Please visit this link from the Government of Quebec on how to prevent drowning.

Physical literacy is about more than becoming proficient in one skill or sport. It’s about becoming competent and confident in a variety of skills and settings. Even if your children don’t become competitive swimmers, getting them comfortable in the pool this summer will change them forever. Besides the prominent safety aspect, they may now have the confidence to try out for the swim team in high school or get out in the canoe on your next family vacation.

If you, as a parent, don’t feel comfortable in your technical swimming ability, that’s okay! Stay in a shallow area, have other adults nearby or even enroll in adult swimming lessons! If you’re comfortable in the water, it’s more likely that your kids will be too. Try asking what they learned most recently at their swimming lesson. If you were present and remembered cues from the instructor, remind your swimmer what’s most important. Be sure to give them lots of praise and try to incorporate both free playtime and time spent practicing skills and building confidence. Have fun in the water throwing a ball, treading water and taking them out in a canoe or kayak (with a lifejacket of course). Planning on going up to a cottage near a lake or beach this summer? No problem! These ideas work in any body of water!

• Start by just holding your child and moving through the water
• This can be done in a variety of positions (facing forwards or backwards, on their bellies or backs)
• Notice if they naturally move their arms and their legs. This is what we want to see. If not, encourage them to do so!
• Practice jumping from the side into your arms
• If they aren’t standing up yet, lift them off the poolside, above your head and into the water. Remember, big smiles and praise!
• Sing a song!
• “The Wheels on the Bus,” “Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” and “I’m a Little Teapot” are all perfect songs with specific actions to get kids comfortable moving in the water.

• Practice star floats on their front or back
• Have them give blowing bubbles a try! This is a super easy skill for you to demonstrate and it’s a fun way to get them comfortable putting their faces in the water
• Ask them to plunge specific body parts in the water 
• Start with fingers or toes and move up to their chin, nose, mouth, ears, etc.
• Play red light, green light!
• Place child where they are comfortable sitting on their own and call out red light (no kicking), yellow light (slow kicking) and green light (fast kicking)
• As they become more comfortable, have them lie down on the stomach and practice putting their face in the water at the same time
• Practice jumping into shallow water on their own
• Encourage them to do “big front crawl arms” while kicking their feet at the same time

• Practice swimming a specific distance on their stomach
• Remind them to move both their arms and their legs at the same time
• You can also do this on their backs!
• Practice breathing to the side 
• They must be comfortable with breathing on both sides!
• Start holding on to a static object first (a wall) and then move onto a flutter board or a noodle
• Have your child retrieve an object from the stairs or the bottom of the pool
• Practice floating in a star on their backs, rolling onto their stomachs and then moving back again
• Practice passing a ball back and forth in the pool

The summer is the perfect time to help develop your children’s physical literacy skills and the pool is a great place for this - always remember, safety first when playing in or around water! Additionally, going swimming is just one of the many ways your child can accumulate their 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity for the day. You may not know that children who get those 60 minutes have higher physical competence, and motivation and confidence scores compared to children who didn’t meet those Physical Activity Guidelines. The confidence that your child will gain from being comfortable in the pool will take them so far in life. Children who know how to swim are more likely to take part in water polo, synchronized swimming, diving, scuba diving, kayaking, sailing, surfing and paddle boarding.

Give your children the opportunity to learn in the pool today!