Why Swim Lessons Are Worth the Investment

You get what you pay for.

This saying may be trite, but it’s really true whether you are purchasing a new car, a new house, or a new pair of socks. While it might be okay to cut corners when buying socks, it’s not okay to cut corners when trying to find the best swim lessons for your child or children. You want the best money can buy because swimming is a lifelong, life-saving, and important life skill. 

So why are swim lessons worth the investment? Read on to find out.

Swimming is a life-saving skill

Most importantly, swimming is a life-saving skill that your child will carry with them for the rest of their life. Because most children are around water from a very early age, it’s vital that you teach them how to swim and how to save themselves as young as possible.

The threat of drowning is very real, especially for younger children. The CDC’s fact sheet says that drowning is responsible for more deaths among children ages 1 to 4 than any other cause except for birth defects. Statistics also show that the fatal unintentional drowning rate for African Americans is statistically higher than that of whites across all ages. These statistics are alarming but not new. Luckily there is a solution.

A 2014 study showed an 88% reduction in drowning when children were enrolled in formal swim lessons. These numbers reinforce the importance of teaching your children how to swim and how to save themselves around any body of water.

Swimming helps with brain cognition and development

In addition to being an excellent life skill, learning how to swim can help with brain cognition and development for young brains. The findings from a four-year study out of Griffith University in Australia bore this out.

“While we expected the children to show better physical development and perhaps be more confident through swimming, the results in literacy and numeracy really shocked us,” Professor Robyn Jorgensen, lead researcher, said. “The children were anywhere from 6 to 15 months ahead of the normal population when it came to cognitive skills, problem solving, in mathematics, counting, language, and following instructions.”

Another anecdotal account from sports documentary filmmaker Jan Lin Lee also stressed how important swimming was to her own toddler’s mental and physical development. In a commentary written for Central News Asia, Lee outlined why parents should invest in infant swimming lessons. “Swimming did help [my infant daughter] to understand how to actively assert all of her body all day and a boldness to explore her surroundings on land, even as uncoordinated as she may be,” Lee wrote.

She goes on to say that swimming lessons helped her daughter develop a keener sense of spatial awareness: “She is noticeably unafraid of big new environments or strangers, and has an independence to overcome obstacles and to solo play.”

Swimming has additional benefits to just being a life-saving activity or a good form of exercise.

Swimming is good clean fun

Finally, swimming is just good clean fun at any age. As a parent, you want your children to experience different activities to help them find their passion and stay active. While some kids may prefer soccer or gymnastics, those kids and toddlers who learn to swim have a skill they can do well beyond their younger years.

They may fall in love with it and want to join a swim or diving team, or they may not. It’s always a good idea to expose kids to a variety of activities so that they have a choice, whether it’s just a hobby or an endeavor that they can compete in as they get older. Either way, it’s a great life skill to have, it helps with both mental and physical development, and it’s fun to be in the water at any age.

Why Emler is worth the investment

Emler Swim School is the best at what we do because we strive to nurture a child’s natural curiosity and ability, not scare them. Emler teaches children how to respect the water, not to be afraid of it.

We also teach kids how to save themselves versus just teaching them how to swim—an important distinction. Some curricula focus only on kids keeping their heads above water, but Emler teaches kids how to swim to a wall so that they can safely exit a pool or recover until they are ready to exit.

This emphasis on life-saving skills is what makes Emler worth the investment…safety is our top priority and it shows in everything from the quality of our lessons to the investment we make in our teachers and facilities.

To learn more or sign your child up for lessons, go to https://emlerswimschool.com/new-swimmer/ and register your child today. It will be one of the most valuable investments you’ll ever make.