What you can expect from your child at 2 years of age to learn in their swimming lesson? Let’s break this down and look at some of the characteristics and developmental milestones your child maybe achieving during this age group.
Social and Emotional Development
- Frequent temper tantrums
- Doesn’t like to share
- May play with other children
- Loves to imitate adults
- Short attention span
- Scribbles pictures
Social and Emotional Implications on the Swimming Lesson?
- Establish pool safety rules within the lesson and follow through with these rules at home.
- Try to limit the number of toys within a lesson as they can be a distraction. Toys can work if they are used for a purpose e.g. To calm an unsettled child or for an activity.
- Demonstrate as child may want to imitate your actions and those around them
- Keep the activities short and make the time in the pool with your little one fun.
- Read books with your child about swimming. To start your off follow this link: www.kidsalive.com.au to subscribe, download and receive some exciting books for free.
Physical Development
- Climb up and down the stairs
- Kick a ball
- Jump from small heights e.g. steps
- Learning to dress themselves
- Confident with physical abilities
- Start testing their limits.
Physical Implications on the Swimming Lesson?
Hold onto your hats parents your children are now moving fast and have their own ideas. Let’s look at how we can implement these physical developments into a lesson.
As a child at 2 years of age start to feel more confident in their own abilities they should be participating in activities where they can monkey and climb out of a pool independently.
Let your child explore around the pool steps and ledges and hold their hand (as they can’t jump out well yet) to teach them how to jump in and turn back to safety.
REMEMBER be vigilant and provide a safe, fun learning environment.
Language Development for child at 2 years of age
Communicating with your child at 2 years of age can be tricky, especially when you’re trying to understand what they want. Children at this stage can
- Name most objects
- Speak in short sentences but sometimes don’t make sense
- Follow more complex instructions
By knowing this, keep your questions simple and use short sentences. Sometimes children may be too shy to speak so watch for non-verbal cues as well. By this stage, you can add more complex swimming activities into the lesson e.g. show them to hold a kickboard to push and float out to parent/teacher.
It’s important to remember children are different and progress at different rates. This is meant to be a guide only. If your child is ahead of this guide or not quite up to these activities be patient, teach to their likes, dislikes and abilities and enjoy the time you spend in the water with them. Swimming with your child at any age can be a great bonding experience.
Leesa Langdon
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