What Are the Benefits of Swimming for Kids?

While many people view swimming as an exercise or recreation, swimming properly and safely is, in fact, a highly valuable and life-saving skill that it is important to learn. Here are a few of the many benefits children experience by learning to swim. At Evolution Swim, we specialize in teaching children – from infancy to adolescence – to become strong and confident swimmers.

With childhood obesity reaching epidemic proportions and kids feeling increasingly pressured to live up to an impossible ideal by social media influencers, we need to give our children all the tools we can to help them become strong, healthy and confident. Teaching your kids to swim and encouraging them to engage in physical activity will go a long way towards helping them succeed in school, work, and life. These are some of the benefits of swimming for kids.

    • They gain an important safety skill. Swimming lessons correspond with an 88 percent reduced risk of drowning in kids between the ages of one and four. Moreover, learning to swim in a controlled environment will also teach kids’ the importance of overall water safety, which will help them develop behaviors by the pool or beach that will reduce the risk of non-drowning injuries.
    • Swimming might improve cognitive functioning. The act of swimming – the cross-pattern bilateral movement of simultaneous paddling and kicking – is believed to build neurons that control reading ability, spatial awareness, and language development.
    • Swimming lessons may help improve confidence. Several studies have found a link between learning to swim and developing situational adaptability at an early age. Moreover, child swimmers have been found to possess greater self-esteem and higher levels of independence.
    • Parent and infant swimming lessons help facilitate bonding. Infant swimming lessons give parents and children precious intimate bonding time together, with close physical and eye-to-eye contact.
    • Swimming lessons improve physical dexterity. Early swimming lessons help infants develop muscles that help them with physical coordination and fine motor skills.
    • Swimming may help encourage better behavior.

Early and continued swimming lessons help children follow instructions closely, which may improve performance in school.

Evolution Swim offers comprehensive swimming lessons for infants and children, giving them the tools, resources, and instruction that allows them to grow into skilled, confident swimmers. To learn more about Evolution Swim baby parent courses, please visit our Baby Splash page.