Swimming lessons are not just a summertime thing. They are offered year-round in dozens of indoor facilities. Last Monday there were still openings in the Learn to Swim spring program that begins March 31.
Not knowing how to swim is a cyclical problem for families. Research completed four years ago by the USA Swimming foundation showed that when a parent doesn’t know how to swim, there is only a 13 percent chance that a child in the household will learn.
Certainly we are not born afraid of water. “Water is an attraction,” Eric Fischer, manager of beaches and pools for the park district, said. “Look at water in a puddle. A child goes to it.”
Especially in minority communities, we must stop passing on fear of water to younger generations. It might help to know that the park district offers lessons to adults as well as children.
It’s never too late to learn.
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