Swimming Lessons

Swimming lessons receive mixed reviews around the world. Perhaps the most controversial aspect for swimming lessons is the age at which to begin.

In the United States, there are no standard guidelines for when to take swimming lessons. In fact, they're not required at all. The merits of lessons for infants and toddlers are continuously debated with one side saying the earlier the better and the other side saying later is safer.

Other countries take a different approach to swimming lessons. In Great Britain, the National Curriculum requires children to swim 25 meters (almost 100 feet) before leaving primary school. Otherwise they must take 30 minutes of swimming every day for two weeks during school time. Those who cannot swim by age 11 receive intensive lessons on a daily basis.

Children in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden face swimming lessons by fifth grade. Here they are required to fall into water deep enough to submerge their heads before swimming 220 yards. Fifty-five of the 220 yards must be on their backs.

Swimming lessons in Belgium and the Netherlands happen during school time, too. One style of swimming, the breaststroke, is schools lag in Dutch, meaning school style.

Neither Canada nor Mexico has swimming lessons included as a required part of a child's formal education but there are efforts underway in both countries to include them.

It's possible that some Russian babies get swimming lessons at the very youngest age. Here, mothers can give birth in deep tubs of warm water in dimly lit rooms. The idea is that modern-day birthing procedures are excessively traumatic for the newborn so a more womb-like environment is created to gently ease the newborn from the dark, warm, wet environment known in the womb into the cold, bright, dry delivery room.