Diventures offers weeknight and weekend lessons and our team can work with you to find a swim lesson that fits your busy schedule. Find a class online or give us a call if you need additional options. Read on for the many benefits of year-round swim lessons.
Consistent water safety education
The primary reason to enroll your child in swim lessons is water safety. Water safety knowledge is something that your child will carry with them for the rest of their life. Achieving basic water competency skills is the first step in preventing drownings. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted a study and found that formal swim lessons between 1-4 years of age resulted in a 88% reduction of risk from drowning.
During swim lessons, kids learn essential skills such as floating, treading water, and recognizing dangerous situations, ensuring they are well-prepared for any aquatic environment. Children learn these skills through repetition and multiple lessons.
Advances in academic achievement
Researchers at Griffith University in Australia have found that children who start swimming early can be significantly ahead of their peers in various developmental areas. According to their study, young swimmers demonstrated advanced skills in oral expression and basic mathematics compared to non-swimmers. The researchers suggest that early swimming may help children “reach milestones sooner.”
Improves cognitive performance
Memory and concentration are also shown to improve with swim lessons. Swimming requires a lot of coordination which involves concentration and exercise to help strengthen the part of your brain associated with memory. These are all skills children can transfer to the classroom.
Encourages leadership
Someone must be the first to demonstrate a skill during lessons. Why not your child? At swim lessons your child can learn to gather their courage and take the first step, or in this case stroke. It may be uncomfortable sometimes but learning to step outside their comfort zone will benefit your child for the rest of their life.
Develops social skills
What’s one of many great things about group swim lessons? Friends! Our small group classes allow children to interact with one another outside of the classroom. They develop social skills while splashing and having fun. Having a friend to look forward to seeing every week makes the classroom-to-pool transition much easier.
Develops patience and sportsmanship
During lessons, students practice taking turns while other students work on their skills. This fosters is a great opportunity for children to display or develop patience. In addition to teaching life-saving swim skills, our swim teachers encourage students to support each other with words of encouragement, clapping or high-fives.
Provides after-school fitness
We all know swimming is a great workout. It works all parts of your body and gets your heart pumping. “The heart is a muscle, and like other muscles, its performance improves when it’s regularly challenged by exercise. Strengthening the heart muscle can help ward off heart disease—the leading cause of death in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—even in early childhood.” (Parents.com) This is especially beneficial after a day of sitting at a desk at school.
Aids in a good night’s sleep
Practice goal setting
Our Passport to Adventure is a unique way to set and achieve goals for your child. Parents and students can clearly see what is required of each level, and they can cross off completed skills. The Passport to Adventure keeps children motivated to improve and level up.
Builds confidence
Confidence is built when your child sets and achieves their goals. The Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh states that “When children feel confident and secure, they’re more likely to succeed in school and achieve personal goals. As they get older, they learn to confront problems and resist peer pressure. More importantly, having a positive self-image helps a child feel happy and capable of maintaining personal relationships.” Confidence and high self-esteem take time to gain but last a lifetime.
Fosters a positive relationship with water
At Diventures, we use our passion and the power of water to impact lives, change the world… and have fun doing it. Once your child is water-competent, the world is their oyster.
Our goal is to foster a love of water which leads to an appreciation for and understanding of our aquatic ecosystems. To help educate our community on the health of our oceans and marine life, we are proud to provide free kid’s Ecology Classes to our swim students and their families that cover marine life and conservation topics.