swimming lessons

[alisonquilts]

I know this post doesn't belong here...but General Interest won't let me post!

My local community pools offer swimming lessons (for kids) each summer. They are free (which is great) but limited in size. This year they are full for my daughter's age/ability class. I would like to know if anyone can direct me to an online 'curriculum' for teaching my child her strokes - properly.

Thanks.
Alison

[PoolDoc]

You're right; this doesn't go in here, but is (unlike most questions people have tried to post there) a legitimate question for here. I'll move it.

I'll attempt an answer -- but you have to understand that my sons were successful competitive swimmers, and I have been a ARC lifeguard instructor, so my concept of what it means to teach your daughter "her strokes" may be more rigorous than yours. That said, the ONLY way I've ever seen a child learn to swim well is to get lessons somewhere till they could at least do something that resembled a freestyle stroke (crawl) and a backstroke . . . and then putting them on a summer league team for 3 consecutive summers.

Almost without exception, swimmers with no competitive experience struggled to gain the water skills necessary to become adequate lifeguards; swimmers with competitive experience almost never did.

Regarding teaching your child to swim, using online curriculum, I don't know of one. There are plenty of off-line materials you can purchase, but I'd be reluctant to recommend any, because I've been too influenced by my older son, who was a very successful and sought-after swim teacher during his college years -- his opinions about most swim teachers don't bear repeating.

I will caution that you usually can't teach, what you don't know. There's little chance your daughter's strokes will be better than yours.