According to a study by Griffith University, preschoolers who participate in swimming lessons were shown to attain more developmental milestones than children who do not. They score significantly better on measures that are essential for their transition to school: Cognitive Development, Language Development, and Physical Development.

Visual-Motor Skills

Did you know that young swimmers were shown to perform better in visual-motor skills such as cutting paper as well as drawing lines and shapes?

This can be attributed to the way swimming lessons are structured. Swimming instructors will usually provide physical demonstrations as they explain the movements verbally. This is able to accommodate many different types of learners: Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic.

Visual learners can observe and attempt to imitate the movement. Auditory learners can listen to how the movements are executed and try to perform them. Kinesthetic learners, on the other hand, can try out the movements hands-on and learn as they go. Instructors will then provide feedback and correct their actions if required.

Since swimming is a skill that requires coordination from head to toe, swimming regularly can definitely improve your child’s motor coordination over time. With repetitive physical learning during swimming lessons, your kids are able to pick up and follow movements and activities through visual imitation easily.

Language Development

Bringing your kids to swimming lessons can enhance their listening skills while following instructions from their swimming instructors. This can not only help them follow their teachers’ instructions in schools, but it can also probably make your lives as parents easier too!

And if you are facing difficulty to get your kids to speak up? Swimming might be able to help too!

In addition to being exposed to group learning, your kids will be used to asking their swimming instructors questions. This can give them the confidence to raise their questions and clarify their doubts when faced with any uncertainties in schools. Hence, signing your child up for swimming lessons builds their oral expression.

Improved Memory

Does your child have “goldfish memory”? Swimming could be the best remedy for your kids!

Now let us go scientific! Hippocampus is the brain area involved in verbal memory and learning. Aerobic exercises, such as swimming, have been proven to play a significant role in the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus. This is due to an increase in oxygen flowing to the brain.

Moreover, the hippocampus shrinks in depressed individuals. Swimming prevents that as endorphins are released when exercising, which alleviates your child’s mood.

With the increased blood flow to your child’s brain, swimming can improve their memory, mood, clarity, and focus. Say yes to swimming and no more worrying about them facing trouble memorizing content-heavy information!

Focus

Are your kids easily distracted?

Short attention spans and inability to focus are common problems faced by kids. By learning swimming, it can allow them to concentrate and not be affected by distractions as they work to execute swimming strokes correctly.

They would also build up their perseverance through focusing on completing the swimming laps and not give up halfway. When they manage to achieve their goals, they can then truly understand the saying “Practice makes perfect!” 

Obstacles are unavoidable throughout your entire life and learning how to swim might potentially train your kids to tackle obstacles in the future. When faced with obstacles, your child can bring in the values that he learnt in swimming, and focus to overcome the challenges ahead.

Focus is useful in school context too! With better focus in class, children can overall better absorb, understand, and apply difficult concepts, translating to better academic results.

Emotional Maturity

While swimming lessons can help with intellectual development, the importance of social and emotional development cannot be neglected as well. In fact, young children that participated in group swimming lessons can be up to 15 months ahead in terms of social and emotional development compared to the normal population.

Signing up your kids to group swimming lessons, when they are young, could be the first time that they are exposed to a big group setting. With greater chances of social interaction, they can develop social interaction skills over time, which is very difficult to teach.

As they start school, possessing such soft skills can help them quickly adapt to the school environment. This in turns leads to them comfortably making friends and interacting with their teachers. This can potentially be the motivation for children to head to school everyday!

Conclusion

Seeing your children achieve good grades would always be something that can brighten the family’s day. Yet, we should not always be emphasizing just on repeated school work that would bore our kids. Using sports such as swimming can directly aid in their overall intellectual development. Sign your kids up for kids swimming lessons and see the impact for yourself!

General Information

1. Study shows kids are smarter if they swim
2. Swimming Makes Your Kids Smarter
3. Children who swim start smarter, study suggests
4. Swimming Can Increase Your Child’s Intelligence
5. Swimming Children are Smarter Children

Hello everyone! My passion for sports writing stems from my day of competing for Nanyang Technological University's Archery team. I was also an avid swimmer when I was young. Other than that, I draw knowledge from my hobby in music and reading to relate to my readers. Hope you enjoy them!