When the temperature drops during the winter, it can be incredibly tempting to stop taking your little ones to the pool for their swimming lessons. This time of year is full of frosty mornings, unpredictable rain and chilling winds, which all make the idea of cancelling your plans and starting to hibernate very appealing!

However, doing so can stunt the progress your child has made in their swimming, and begin to affect their health. If you want to learn more about this, take a look at our list of four reasons why you should push yourself to take your children to their lessons.

1) Sharpening Their Safety Skills

The retention of skills and safety information is the number one reason to keep children swimming during the colder months. If they can continue to build on all of the techniques they have learnt by continuing our programme in December through to March, then your child will definitely be a stronger swimmer when the warmer weather returns!

Alongside this, swimming all year round means that your little ones will be able to apply the basic skill of swimming to real-life situations. This ensures that they know how to stay out of danger, as the quick response which is needed when falling into water does not become innate without practice. In return, you’ll be safe in the knowledge that your child can fully enjoy all the fun water-based activities when summer finally comes around again.

2) Staying Healthy by Boosting Their Immunity

Have you heard the old wives’ tale about going out with wet hair making you sick? Maybe you’ve always trusted your parents and grandparents on this, but it’s probably time to start second-guessing their slightly old-fashioned, but very common, belief. In reality, swimming during the winter can markedly improve children’s immune systems, in turn reducing their risk of catching a virus! It turns out that damp hair is really nothing to fear.

Winter swimming can also improve children’s all-round physical health. You may have found that your child gets restless during winter, which is mostly due to them not being able to stay as active because of the cold weather. Swimming is a great way to ensure that they remain fit, whilst being in an indoor environment! Keeping active is so important for good health and well-being, and it should be maintained throughout the year, not just during the months when the weather allows for it.

3) Helping Their Brains Grow

As well as being a good way to improve physical health, getting the kids out of the house and into the pool during winter has been proven to benefit their psychological health and development! This is due to the very nature of swimming, which centres on rhythmic and bilateral strokes. This way of moving your body helps to connect neurological pathways in the brain.

Alongside this, studies have shown that because swimming helps to increase the production of the human growth hormone (HGH), it helps to improve children’s cognitive functions. This is due to HGH having various benefits for the human body, which includes increasing brain volume!

4) Keeping up Their Confidence

By not attending swimming lessons during the winter, it invariably leads to a child being unable to perform at the level they were at. In turn, this can cause a decline in their confidence. Continued participation in the colder months is the only way to prevent this! This particularly applies to children under the age of four, as for them a significant break from swimming can lead to a noticeable decrease in their ability.

Can you think of any other reasons to keep your little one swimming during the winter? Let us know in the comments.

For further information on our private one-to-one or two-to-one swimming lessons, visit www.swimmingnature.com or call us on 03445 040506.