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Ready to Swim
Toddlers Can Take to the Water for Health and Fitness
By April E. Clark
Honey Lanning, a former Junior Gold Olympics team member and professional swim instructor for more than 30 years from Simi Valley, Calif., agrees with Taylor. "You have to make things fun for children, but you must teach them that no one is ever water safe," says the certified water safety expert who has taught more than 5,000 students. "Children are smart and they can learn about water safety early. However, the biggest problem with most lessons is the inclusion of floatation devices, which lead children to believe water is a place to play. If they know how to swim that's fine, but you can easily send the wrong signal."
As an advocate of toddler aquatic instruction, Lanning believes early education is important for young children to embrace the passion for swimming. A high school swim coach, she has seen success in children as young as 9 months. "It all depends on the physical size of the child and whether the child can change directions and grab the sides of the pool," she says. "I think 1 year to 18 months is really the ideal age range for toddlers to learn how to swim. The very first thing I teach is how to hold their breath under water, and they learn to hold their breath very, very quickly."
Like Lanning, the American Red Cross is a proponent of water orientation courses for infants and toddlers. The humanitarian organization, which actively encourages family preparedness, offers a Parent and Child Aquatics Program for parents and their children between 6 months and 5 years. During the program, kids learn water entry, front kicking, back floating and underwater exploration.
