Having a swimming pool can be a great way to enjoy those hot summer days or doing a few laps to keep fit, however if the family includes a couple of young children then your pool can also be used as an aquatic education facility. This means you as a parents can teach your child some of the basic techniques needed to gain a competent level of skill so the children can also enjoy the pool with confidence. Throughout this article we will endeavour to cover some helpful hints for teaching infants around 2 years old as well a young children around the age of 4-5 years.

The main objectives of having infants in the water is to assist the child and parents to become familiar with the water and help develop confidence through participation in a range of safe and enjoyable aquatic activities. The use of play, exploration and encouragement will ultimately lead to the development of basic water safety skills. These experiences will encourage infants to return to the water eagerly and willingly while providing opportunities for parents and young children to share in a social activity.

Much of the water confidence can be achieved at home during regular bath time, where the infant can use toys to help enjoy the time and parents can facilitate the process by slowly introducing water to the infants face. The ability of the child to happily put their face in the water is the main hurdle to overcome. This is, once the child can blow bubbles or put their face down, then the whole process of learning new skills will follow. Some of the ways parents can assist in the process is by using face washers, small cups of water or small toy watering cans to gentle and slowly introduce water to the face of the child. This can be continued over a period of a few weeks, where you will see a greater level of confidence and enjoyment in and around the water.

Once the child is happy with having water around their body the parents can introduce them to the swimming pool, but remember to always be in the water with your child holding them to satisfy any worry that they may have. Different holds can be used as a cradle hold, a protective hold, where the parent has their arms firmly around the child or the hip where the child is resting on the hip of the adult. All of these will provide reassurance to the child. But remember that `play' is a valued tool for teaching aquatic skills and should be used all the time. Along with `play' the introduction of songs, rhymes and stories can be used to great effect. The old `humpty dumpty' or `dingle dangle scarecrow' songs are still widely used in infants aquatic programmes throughout the country. With the infants now happy to enter the water we can start to move on to the other skills such as different entries or ways to safely get into the pool. This can be done by practising standing entries, sitting entries or walking into the pool. Let me state again this should all be done with the parents in the pool giving guidance and encouragement.

Floating and balancing skills are another useful skill practising sculling movements with the hands and legs while the adult hold the child giving encouragement. The use of floatation aids can be used for these skills in that they provide assistance and create a sense of independence with safety. Revision of early practices that were done during bath time should be continued throughout the pool session by using the face washer or the small cup or watering can to gently introduce water to the face and over the top of the head. Continued water familiarisation along with the supervision will create confidence and enjoyment of the pool for you and your infant for many years to come.

Now we can look at some helpful hints for young children for 4-5 years of age. If the child is not a swimmer and is very nervous about the water then some of the tips already given can apply with the older children. Confidence and enjoyment of the water is the primary aim before we can move on to learning to swim. There are four main factors which affect or will assist in the skill of swimming. These are body position, buoyancy, resistance and propulsion all of which can be broken down and taught separately in your own pool. Body positioning is perhaps the most important objective for the children to achieve because without correct horizontal body positioning swimming can be very difficult. Ways to practice correct positioning is by kicking the legs whilst the face is submerged either with or without a kickboard. This is a practice that should be emphasised whilst the children are in the pool playing, try and get them to do a few laps of kicking or kickboard races.

The second skills to practice is that of being buoyant or floating. All children will enjoy floating games and again it is a great way for children to gain confidence and skill development. Buoyancy is not only necessary for correct swimming techniques but greatly contributes to water safety and therefore eases the parents mind.

The third skills to practice is resistance. This is not so much a skill as actually being aware of what it is and how it can affect good swimming techniques. The children should practice games and drills that cause streamlining or being skinny through the water, which will aid fast efficient movement. Drills like kick or diving with the face down and without kicking the legs to see how far they can glide, will enhance the feeling of efficiency through the water.

The fourth skills is that of propulsion or discovering what makes us move through the water. By practising all the above skills at the same time, or combining them will lead to an effective stroke. It is about this time that you as a parent must make it clear that time spent in a pool should be divided between fun play time and practising certain aspects of the skill of swimming like kicking, floating, face down gliding, backstroke kicking, diving or simply swim races against siblings or friends.