Let's Go Swimming: A Mermaid's Guide to Swim Safety!

Michelle Lang has taught over 10,000 swim lessons around the globe to a wide variety of high-profile clients, including Hollywood’s biggest celebrities, (Kim Kardashian West and Simon Cowell, among others) teaching their children how to peacefully overcome life’s challenges, both in water and in life. Now, her unique and highly sought-after method is available to everyone. Her new book, A Mermaid’s Guide: Empower Your Child in Water and in Life, details a simple, yet sophisticated, re-branding of how everyone should learn to swim.

Here are 5 tips to help you this summer:

1. Breath Control — Breath control is the most important skill children should learn prior to beginning swim lessons. You can begin teaching your child breath control as young as three months old in the bathtub! Prepare your baby for their first underwater experience by teaching them to hold their breath as you gently trickle or pour water over their hair/face. A Mermaid’s Guide gives you 5 bathtub exercises you can work on with your child, starting today!

2. No Mouth Bubbles — Blowing bubbles is the #1 bad swim habit Lang sees. Why? Because the air inside your child’s body is what is keeping them afloat! If they blow out all their air, they will start to sink. For adults, it’s okay to blow mouth bubbles because we are strong enough to pop up for another breath, but when a child is first learning how to swim they don’t know how to pop up for breaths yet. Try telling your child, “Your body is like a balloon!” And then demonstrate how to take a deep breath and hold it. (Lang calls this “Pufferfish.”) If your child is getting water up their nose, have them gently HUMMMM under the water. In A Mermaid’s Guide there are 4 “scoop signs” detailed out to help you make sure your child isn’t drinking the water and is exercising proper breath control.

3. Gentle Submersions — You must work into submersions gently. Start by teaching proper breath control in the bathtub and then, once in the pool, teach them to hold their breath and go under the water for one second. (Eyes open under the water, mouth closed.) Once they can hold their breath for one second, gently help them go under the water for two seconds, and then three seconds. Slowly build their breath control to five seconds before you teach them the next phase of swimming.

4. Floaties are NOT safety devices — Infants can drown in just an inch of water in less than 30 seconds. Never leave your child alone in the bathtub or the swimming pool. Drowning is dangerous because it happens silently. Unlike how it is portrayed in the movies, there’s no splashing or yelling. Keep your eyes on your child at all times when they are around water, even if they are in a floatation device.

5. Keep trying! – Some children don’t seem to, “like” to learn at the start, but all love to swim once they know how. In over 10 years of teaching Lang has NEVER had a child who couldn’t learn to swim and who didn’t love it once they understood the three simple swim phases detailed out in A Mermaid’s Guide. Even if you take your child into the pool for 10 minutes a day, three days a week and work on their skills, you’ll notice a huge difference. So enjoy the summer and get your munchkin swimming. For a short video detailing out what your child can do at various ages go here: https://vimeo.com/133921122

A Mermaid’s Guide is a #1 best-selling book for how to empower your child in water and in life. You can find it on Amazon.com or anywhere you buy books!

Have more swim questions? Join Author Michelle Lang at the Barnes and Noble at the Grove on June 24th, 7pm for a lively discussion and book signing. She'll be doing a Q and A, so bring any pressing thoughts/questions/ideas with you!

@Be_a_rbl | www.RelaxationBasedLifestyle.com | @TheMichelleLang

‍