As parents know, keeping kids physically active helps keep them healthy, as well as mentally and socially engaged. It also provides a positive outlet for stress relief, but you might wonder just how many kids’ sports programs your child can juggle at once, and how other healthy kids activities can compliment others. It’s clear that swimming lessons can be complementary to other water-based hobbies, like water polo or snorkeling, but they can also go hand-in-hand with less likely sports and pastimes. Here are a few:
Seasonal Activities
Is your kid a superstar at playing soccer? Do they love hitting the tennis courts, or playing baseball? Or maybe your child is crazy about flying remote-controlled airplanes or going camping. Children are a diverse bunch, and their interests are likely to be just as diverse. It’s great to encourage and foster an array of pursuits, in order to help your little one figure out what brings them passion and joy. But, unfortunately, many activities are limited to certain seasons due to the weather.
If swimming in your backyard pool is your child’s activity of choice, the winter months may be a bummer for them. Or if your child simply enjoys climbing the rock wall at the local playground, they may go stir crazy when it storms outside or gets too cold to comfortably enjoy spending time at the park. The bottom line: If your child loves seasonal activities, introducing swimming lessons at an indoor pool into their repertoire can be a great way to keep them physically and mentally stimulated when their usual go-to hobbies are in their off season.
Singing and Playing Wind Instruments
Swimming lessons can help in developing and strengthening your child’s lung capacity, even from the time they first begin classes as a baby. The longer they take lessons, the more they’ll master breath control and increase the depth of their breaths. This can all help children manage their breathing when learning to sing or play wind instruments, like a trumpet, saxophone or flute.
Physical Activities that Require Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation
There are a variety of kids’ physical activities that depend on the body being in peak condition and/or are strenuous on the body. For example, if your little one is involved in dance (like ballet), their dance instructor will likely want them to steer clear of activities that could be hard on their knees, feet or legs (like skiing or gymnastics). Swimming lessons provide a perfect complement to dance or similar activities by offering kids a gentle way to increase cardio ability and muscular strength without the fear of injury to key body parts.
Or, if you have children who play contact sports, you might find that they experience injuries the more they play. If this is the case for your child, swimming lessons can help in the rehabilitation process. Of course you’ll need to check with your doctor, but the gentle, no-impact way in which swimming provides resistance to muscles and encourages blood flow can support the healing of injuries.
So if you’re looking for the best kids healthy activities to integrate into your child’s busy schedule, we invite you to consider swimming lessons. They offer a host of benefits, and can be complementary to countless other activities. Contact us if you’d like to learn more.
