Teach Your Child to Swim Through Games and Play

Discover 60 games that use little or no equipment and that cover all of the essential basics of learning to swim, including breathing, floating, submerging, gliding, kicking and pulling. Explore games and activities that teach them all.

Using games and play to teach your child how to swim will not only open their mind to imagination and engagement, but it will help to distract them from the fears and anxieties often associated with the new sensations of being in the water and the expectations that come with learning how to swim.

'I'm Mark Young, a swimming teacher with 30 years experience, and let me tell you, teaching my own three children to swim was a nightmare! They did not want to listen to Dad and just wanted to play. So, I gave up trying to teach them and let them play. Then it hit me. By playing and doing their own thing, they discovered the water for themselves. So I began to weave in some basic swimming skills and elements of swimming lessons into their games and, because it was a game, they were willing participants. Without knowing, they were learning how to swim as part of their play.

Use the games and tools in my book and you can do the same. Have fun!'