Are child swim lessons common in America? Over here, free swim lessons are now provided for children, and mandatory swim lessons are provided as part of primary school. My understanding is that it’s made a relatively large dent in the rate of child drowning injury.
In particular, once your child is proficient at swimming, you can get lessons on plain clothes swimming incase of a trip, fall, or if another kid needs rescuing.
Like many things in America, swim lesson accessibility is unevenly distributed. Larger municipalities do often offer low-cost swim lessons but these fill up quickly. Private swim lessons can be quite expensive. And sadly, swim lessons are not a standard part of public education. Local and regional variation is the name of the game. Even at the high school level, not every school will have its own pool.
In regions of the US that have a lot of open water (natural bodies or just hot places where lots of people have swimming pools), it’s pretty common to start basic floating lessons in infancy, because you never know when a kid might accidentally fall into the water.
Are child swim lessons common in America? Over here, free swim lessons are now provided for children, and mandatory swim lessons are provided as part of primary school.
It sounds like maybe you’re talking about somewhat older kids; is it common for kids in your country to have taken swim lessons by age four?
is it common for kids in your country to have taken swim lessons by age four?
I’m not the original commenter, but here in Australia it’s pretty common. This report bemoaning the decline(!) in swimming skills claims that 59% of kids are enrolled in formal swimming lessons by the age of 3.
(The linked page says “before age three”, but the full report says both “before the age of three” and “between 0-3 years old”, which I would usually take to include the year before the child turns 4. So I’m not sure what the cutoff is. And I don’t know if the statistic is well supported; I’m only using it to back up the vague claim that swimming lessons for kids under 4 are pretty common here.)
With a bit over 600k 0-3 year Olds in swim lessons at the time of the linked report, and around 1.2 million children in that age range in Australia, I’d estimate at least half of kids below 4 have taken swim lessons. So quite common, but not to the extent that I had thought.
Notably, swim lessons for young children are highly subsidized by most states, with many offering a fixed number of free lessons.
A bit later in primary school, the majority of kids will be given free swim lessons at their local public pool though.
Are child swim lessons common in America? Over here, free swim lessons are now provided for children, and mandatory swim lessons are provided as part of primary school. My understanding is that it’s made a relatively large dent in the rate of child drowning injury.
In particular, once your child is proficient at swimming, you can get lessons on plain clothes swimming incase of a trip, fall, or if another kid needs rescuing.
Like many things in America, swim lesson accessibility is unevenly distributed. Larger municipalities do often offer low-cost swim lessons but these fill up quickly. Private swim lessons can be quite expensive. And sadly, swim lessons are not a standard part of public education. Local and regional variation is the name of the game. Even at the high school level, not every school will have its own pool.
In regions of the US that have a lot of open water (natural bodies or just hot places where lots of people have swimming pools), it’s pretty common to start basic floating lessons in infancy, because you never know when a kid might accidentally fall into the water.
In other regions it’s a lot less so.
It sounds like maybe you’re talking about somewhat older kids; is it common for kids in your country to have taken swim lessons by age four?
I’m not the original commenter, but here in Australia it’s pretty common. This report bemoaning the decline(!) in swimming skills claims that 59% of kids are enrolled in formal swimming lessons by the age of 3.
(The linked page says “before age three”, but the full report says both “before the age of three” and “between 0-3 years old”, which I would usually take to include the year before the child turns 4. So I’m not sure what the cutoff is. And I don’t know if the statistic is well supported; I’m only using it to back up the vague claim that swimming lessons for kids under 4 are pretty common here.)
Apparently, you can start teaching infants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsUSlfUWAd8
Apologies for the late reply.
https://www.royallifesaving.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/71223/Royal-Life-Saving-special-report-on-learn-to-swim-post-pandemic-enrollments-2022.pdf
With a bit over 600k 0-3 year Olds in swim lessons at the time of the linked report, and around 1.2 million children in that age range in Australia, I’d estimate at least half of kids below 4 have taken swim lessons. So quite common, but not to the extent that I had thought.
Notably, swim lessons for young children are highly subsidized by most states, with many offering a fixed number of free lessons.
A bit later in primary school, the majority of kids will be given free swim lessons at their local public pool though.