Tip 202: Learn swimming at an early age

Haruka had her first swim in Singapore. We are excited for her. She adapted to the swimming pool easily. Children below 5 years old or even younger have higher propensity to swim and have little fear of deep waters (especially when using a float). In fact, I know of parents who send their babies swimming below 1 year old and the kids grow up enjoying swimming. The key to swimming is having the parents instill courage and play while swimming. I noticed Haruka learnt swimming by watching the kids swim. It takes too much effort for Haruka to listen to what I say on the need to kick her legs and to not worry too much about swallowing water. She listened a few of my instructions, then as she saw the other friendly kids in the pool swim, she followed. She played with them and she learnt.













Fear is the single issue that causes a barrier in learning and living. This explains why young toddlers can learn so fast, while older children would be worried if they would perform well enough or have developed fears from watching televisions or through their judgement of the situation. I learnt swimming pretty late. I remembered that I would worry if I am swimming the right way and worry if I can do it well like the rest of the people in the pool. After a few dips in the water, my judgement of the dangers of the water would sometimes overwhelm me to discourage me from taking bolder steps to swim at the deeper end. This reduced the learning phase to explore and to enjoy swimming. I could swim now but felt I could have done much better if I had exposed myself to the joy of swimming much earlier.













It is a blessing that countries near to the equator like Malaysia and Singapore have warm weather all year round which opens more opportunity for swimming. Also, land are larger with many condominiums with swimming pools. Its a luxury Haruka did not had when living in Tokyo, London or Hong Kong. She would be able to swim for 1 month in the current service apartment provided by my company, but would have to wait another 1 year before I decide to purchase a condo in Singapore as our next apartment does not have so many facilities. Nevertheless, we are glad Haruka still felt comfortable swimming now eventhough we did not start her earlier. If she ever had a phobia to advance her skills later, she can always view this blogpost to remind her that she can do it.

(Photos show Haruka at the Fraser Place swimming pool where we stayed for our first month in Singapore when we just touched down).