Do You Teach Back-Floating or Rolling to the Back, Like I Saw in That YouTube Video?
Generally speaking, children between about five months and three and a half years do not like to be on their backs (you’ve likely encountered this phenomenon while your child is on the changing table at home). Of course, a child can be physically forced to back float or log roll, however, you will need to force your way through tears (at best) and through vomiting or post-traumatic stress (at worst).
As our description would suggest, we will not physically force our will upon your child (or any student) in our classes, and we will strongly frown upon parents who push their children too hard. If you need to force your child to learn survival skills or to make them 'drown-proof,' we would recommend you take lessons where the school caters to those requirements.
In our Preschool and Child Learn-to-Swim programs, we will gradually introduce back floating and log rolls into the curriculum in an age-appropriate setting. We will use these skills as a way to prepare them to learn the basics of the freestyle stroke and not as a fundamental safety skill.
There are other more effective safety skills that your child will learn that do not involve back-floating or log rolling. Some of these include:
- Learning to wait on the side until a parent cues the entry
- Learning to hold the breath under water to buy time for a rescue
- Learning to reach and grab for the wall and hold on
- Learning to enter, turn around, and reach for the wall – the likely scenario in the doomsday setting
As the parent, you must play the role of lifeguard for your child. The best defense against drowning and injury is a parent being in the water with their child, maintaining eye contact with their child, staying in physical contact (for children under the age of four) or in arms reach (for children over the age of four), and keeping your child within the bounds of the skills they’ve learned in class (for all children, regardless of age).
Other lines of defense include proper pool set up (fencing, automatically closing doors and locks, pool alarms, high locks on doors) and infant/child CPR.