How to Teach a Child the Front Crawl Swimming Stroke

One of the most basic swimming strokes is the front crawl. Your child has probably seen you doing it in the pool if you are a swimmer and has tried to imitate it. If you're interested in teaching your child how to do the stroke correctly, you'll need to dedicate some pool time to a few practice sessions to get the fundamentals of the stroke down. If your child is already a strong swimmer, the stroke should come fairly naturally. If your child has fair to poor swimming ability, or has just learned to swim, than the crawl can help her feel more secure in the pool, by coordinating her legs and arms and giving her some power in the water. <br>There are four basic areas to focus on when teaching the crawl to a child: the placement and movement of the arms, head, body and legs.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Start by having your child practice her kick by holding on to the side of the pool and kicking. Encourage her to make big splashes as she kicks. Explain that this is her motor and that as she's swimming she needs to keep this motor running.

2. Stand in the shallow end and hold your child in the water, floating on her stomach. Have her kick, and show her that her motor is running well, now you just have to add the arms and the rest of the body.

3. Hold your hand under her stomach and tell her that she needs to keep her body straight, moving forward like an arrow floating on top of the water, the top of her head aimed at the other end of the pool. Have her put her arms over her head, right at her ears. The arms take turns going up and out of the water at the waist, traveling up toward the sky and then coming back down when her upper arm reaches her ear and re-entering the water. Have her try it. When the first arm comes out of the water, arcs up and comes back down in front of her head, cue her other arm to lift out of the water and begin the overhead arc while guiding the underwater arm to the waist position. Show her that her arms are going in wide circles, first one arm, then the next arm, like flat fan blades.

4. Have her try kicking across the shallow end, fanning her arms and kicking at the same time. Tell her it's tough to coordinate at first, but encourage her to keep trying.

5. Position her head right. Tell your child that with this stroke, her face is in the water. She might want to practice with goggles. As one arm comes up past her right ear, if she needs to breathe, she can turn her face sideways out of the water momentarily, so it's looking at the right arm, and take a breath quickly before the arm drops into the water. Correct form is only taking a breath sideways while the arm passes by. Otherwise her face should lie flat in the water like she's doing a belly flop.

6. Show your child the stroke yourself so she can get a good visual idea of how it looks all put together. And remind her that the hardest part is coordinating it all, keeping your body straight, keeping your hands glued together like fins, and getting across the pool in a straight line.

7. Swim alongside her as she practices and help guide her. She should get it down in a few practice sessions!