Infant and Toddler Swim
Facts
| What Does A
"Quality Aquatic Education" Include? |
- Enable a
child to obtain swimming skills at the earliest possible age at
which they are able to acquire and apply them. At Children Of
The Sea, we begin this process with children as young as 6 months,
but we also specialize in successfully teaching swimmers of all ages
and abilities (infants to adults).
- Train
children in safety behaviors even before they are skilled
swimmers. This training is needed especially during the months
and years prior to being consistently able to use skill and judgment
to swim to safety.
- Educate
adult family members and caregivers drowning prevention strategies
that they can immediately apply to help safeguard young children.
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| Facts
About Infant / Toddler Swimming: |
- Scientific
Studies, which have been carried out in many countries, show that
regular baby swim training reduces an infants sick rate 65-70% as
compared to babies who have not had swim lessons.
- A fear of
the water is only developed as the baby grows older. Early
infant swimming prevents these fears from developing.
- Babies who
have an early swimming experience show improved physical and
psychological development.
- Swimming
enhances the baby's balance, strength, coordination and
endurance. As well as their concentration and sense of
independence.
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| "Baby
Swimming" Advances Independence and Development of Intelligence |
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If children already learn
to swim at an early age, not only is their physical development advanced,
but also their power of concentration, reaction velocity, intelligence as
well as social behavior at kindergarten-age are favorably influenced.
That is why several years
of testing, at the German Sports College Cologne, revealed about the
effect of early movement training on the general development of the
pre-school child.
The starting point was
earlier observations of infants' swimming behavior. It was established,
thereby, that children who had already taken part in swimming training in
the third month of their lives were not only more skilful in their
movements but also more self-confident and independent, in comparison to
their contemporaries.
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The Federal Minister
for Education and Science: Public Relations Bulletin, March 28, 1979
This
was fully confirmed by systematic testing on kindergarten children, from
1974 to 1976, supported by the Federal Ministry for Education and Science.
The observed children were assigned to six "Groups", who
commenced swimming and gymnastic programs or only received instructions in
gymnastics at different times (with 3, 6 or 2, 4 years resp.). One control
group received no sports instructions of any sort.
The "swimming children" were
ahead of their contemporaries, in all tested areas. Those who took part in
baby swimming, from the third month of their lives, fared particularly
well in each case. In regard to development of the intellectual
capacities, it could be established that early swimmers showed higher
intelligence values, already at the commencement of the two-year test
period - when they were four years old, in nearly all sub-tests of the
applied intelligence tests than the children who belonged to the later
advanced groups or also the control group.
In the social area, "swimming
children" were more willing to make contact and adjusted themselves
better in the group of contemporaries. They were more independent and less
timid. They could cope with new and strange situations better and their
efficiency motivation rose steadily in the test period.
The researchers of the registered
Association for training Research Cologne explain the results to the
effect that they are not due to physical training alone. Psychic treatment
processes probably also played a part. Early-child movement training
develops an area which enables the child to have successful experiences
relatively easy. This lifts self-confidence and advances independence. At
the same time, it seems to influence the manner in which the children and
parents deal with one another - that is to say, that more and more
independence is given or even urged upon the child. This again influences
the pleasure of achievement and development of intelligence favorably. |
