Oh great, my son who's 7 years old and can barely swim, is going to a water park tomorrow as part of his summer camp, and I won't be there to watch over him. Just what I needed to see right now :) Of course there are lifeguards out there and there's the camp staff watching over the kids, but it's my child, I can't help being a little stressed about it. It's time for proper swimming lessons I guess.
I am from the UK, and here everybody learns to swim at school around 6, it is simply part of the curriculum. It is treated like reading or writing, if you can't do it you get put in special classes till you can. I would guess more people can swim here than can ride a bike. Lots of people in these videos look like they can't swim at all! Is this the norm in the USA?
Unfortunately both biking and swimming seem to be "privileged" activities in USA. Unless one lives in the inner city or a desert, it doesn't actually take much money to bring your children to a stream or lake (or, for not much more money, a public pool), but many parents are uncomfortable around the water themselves. Those of us whose relatives got us into the water as toddlers are fortunate indeed.
It would be nice to imagine that the average USA public school could bring children to a pool and teach them to swim. It seems unlikely, however.
I'm not from the US, I'm from Israel. When I was a child swimming was part of our school curriculum, and I learned to swim at around 7 I guess (I already knew basic breast stroke my mom taught me at 4). But that was in a small community that had its own swimming pool, I'm not sure what's the norm in big cities that don't have many public pools. Also, the public education system here as been degraded quite substantially in the past 30 years.
My kids has swim lessons from two years old. It is very cheap insurance. My son is now 7 and did his first triathlon this year. You should really think about paying for swim lessons if there is any chance they will be swimming, especially unattended.
