“We live on an island. New Zealand is a big island and you expect everyone to be able to swim,” Watson said. “But that’s not the case.”
In fact, last year there were 90 preventable drownings in New Zealand. If that number isn’t worrying enough, the 2022 National Beach and Coastal Safety Report found nearly three in 10 Kiwis, 31 per cent, cannot swim or float in the ocean for more than a few minutes.
Only 9 per cent of Kiwi adults swam further than 50m in the ocean in 2022, while 30 per cent have never swum this distance in the ocean before.
In light of the figures, Watson and Roberts reveal the steps they’ve taken to try and make sure their kids are water-safe and try to answer questions they have around access to good swimming lessons.
One major question they posed was whether the council-run Learn To Swim programmes were fit for purpose.
Roberts revealed he was sceptical of what he felt was a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching swimming.
After nearly three years of Auckland Council swimming lessons, Roberts felt his daughter “learned next to nothing” and failed to “gain any water confidence”.
Roberts claims the class was so full and busy, teachers were unable to focus on individual kids and advance their skills.
So the radio host and wife Lucy decided to try something different to get their daughter more confident in the water.
Six months after they began taking their daughter to a privately owned swimming school in West Auckland, Roberts claimed she had gone from “being scared of getting into the water to swimming a width of the pool, with no floaties on, with her face in the water”.
“And that’s the difference that a really good swimming teacher will make,” he added.
Watson and Roberts also felt parents shouldn’t try to teach kids to swim if they’re not good swimmers themselves.
“It’s kind of like how bad drivers shouldn’t be allowed to teach their kids how to drive. Because you’re just passing on bad habits,” Roberts said. “You’re going to teach them the worst way to swim.”
So should such parents employ a professional to teach their kids how to swim if their financial situation allows it?
“Absolutely,” Roberts said.
In a statement to the Herald, Sam Sinton, Auckland Council’s leisure network services manager, said the council’s Learn to Swim Lessons were a “great way for children and adults to gain confidence in the water and ultimately learn to swim”.
Sinton said thousands of people attend the classes each year but added: ”Instructor to learner ratios are consistent with other swimming lessons around New Zealand. Current ratios are 1 to 10 for baby and toddler classes; 1 to 3 for preschool classes, 1 to 5 for beginner classes and 1 to 6 for advanced classes.
Watson noted how he felt simply having access to water skyrockets a child’s confidence, explaining how using his neighbours’ pool allowed his daughter to thrive in the water.
“The amount that a kid just grows in water confidence if they have access to a mate’s pool is insane,” he said. “She now just wants to leap into water; she’d live in the ocean.”
But he cautioned the extreme importance of keeping a watchful eye on kids in the pool as that confidence can be “detrimental”.
“You don’t want her jumping in a pool when no one’s around and then freaking out, so it’s a balance.”
- For more information and expert tips on keeping kids safe in water, visit the Water Safety New Zealand website, or their Under5 website.
- To hear more about how Watson and Roberts manage to keep their kids water-safe while teaching them to swim and growing their water confidence, listen to this week’s episode of The Parenting Hangover below.
- You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are out every Thursday.
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