Should Swim Lessons Be Year Round or Seasonal?
Learning is an integral part of life, and consistency is crucial to the whole process. This is especially true when it comes to swim lessons. Many parents enroll their kids for swim lessons in the summer and/or spring time but keep them indoors during the winter months. While seasonal learning may help children improve their skills during the period of active learning, many parents find their children lose the progress they have made after taking a break. When it comes to mastering a skill, consistency is critical. To improve swimming skills, it is highly recommended that you consider keeping at it all year round.
Year-Round Learning vs. Seasonal Learning
To clearly understand this, let me share an experience from a friend. In the spring semester of his sophomore year of college, he decided that he wanted to learn Chinese. It was the most challenging class he’d ever taken, and he had to work ridiculously hard to earn a good grade. With the coming summer break, he worried about forgetting how to read and write the huge number of characters that he’d worked so hard to learn and that he’d wind up falling behind when he resumed Chinese classes in the fall. He promised himself that he wouldn’t let this happen; he would practice on his own throughout the summer. Life got busy, and he kept putting off the practice. Sure enough, when September rolled around, he found himself struggling and ultimately wound up dropping the class, a decisions he hugely regretted years later when he found himself teaching English in Taiwan.
Seasonal learning is like going all out to learn Chinese during the school year only to lose the skill after summer break because of not staying consistent. It can often result in a lot of wasted time and frustration. When it comes to swimming, many people start learning and keep at it for a couple of months. Then when they start mastering the skills, they go on a break to return the following year. The tendency to lose many of the skills that have been mastered so far is quite common.
Year-round learning, on the other hand, ensures consistency throughout the learning process. Perhaps we should amend “practice makes perfect” to “consistent practice makes perfect.” This applies to swimming lessons in several aspects including acquired knowledge, technique, confidence, and strength. The more consistently we practice, the more of these we retain.
Health Benefits of Staying Active During the Colder Months
In addition to confidence, techniques, and water safety skills that develop when taking swimming lessons, there are also some great health benefits that are associated with swimming all year round. The winter season can be both physically and mentally tough, especially when you consider the transition from the warm and beautiful outdoor activities you enjoy during summer. During winter, the norm is to stay cooped-up indoors and minimize outdoor activities as much as possible. Unfortunately, this is not good for our health.
Remaining active during the winter keeps us healthier, happier, and more full of energy. In addition to this, it has been reported that kids who are active all year round have a reduced risk of becoming overweight or developing type-2 diabetes. Engaging in year-round swimming also promotes healthier cholesterol and blood pressure levels. It even helps us sleep better.
Get a Head-Start on Summer Swimming
Besides health benefits, swimming through the winter increases your or your child’s skills and level of comfort in the water and gives you a jumpstart on enjoying time at the beach and the pool when summer rolls around. Get back into the pool now to be sure your kids are ready to maximize their fun while safely enjoying these activities.
Many parents worry that swimming in cold weather will make their children susceptible to getting sick. Luckily, between temperate Charleston weather and indoor/heated pools, Charleston Swim School has got plenty of options to prevent this from being an issue. We provide year-round swimming lessons at three different locations (one outdoor and two indoor) in Mt. Pleasant, James Island, and North Charleston, SC. Our temperature-controlled facilities give you open access to swimming, regardless of the season.
Conclusion
Many skills, swimming included, can fade with a lack of practice and consistency. If you restrict swimming lessons to a particular season, you or your children can easily regress, forgetting many of the skills acquired so far. Instead of potentially starting your summer off with the discouragement of being behind where they left off the previous season, why not seize the opportunity to come into it even healthier and more confident than ever before? Don’t hesitate to contact us with questions or to book a lesson. The Charleston Swim family will happily give you a warm winter welcome.
