Please take the time to read the post and watch the attached video in its entirety. It was taken today and is an example of a swimmer who is dependent on goggles swimming with them and without them. Her name is Samantha. She had a VERY mild reaction to me taking the goggles away and was able to recover. This is not typical. It looks way worse in many cases.
Goggles for swim lessons are unnecessary and DANGEROUS!!! Buyer beware if your swim instructor/school requires goggles or allows goggles during lessons for any child who who is not an experienced swim team swimmer and completely water safe for an extended period of time.
For successful and safe swimming children should be acclimated to water on their face and be willing to open their eyes and look around. Dependency on goggles, fear of getting the face wet, and not opening the eyes in the water can be a long term danger and put children at a higher risk for drowning.
Parents and swim instructors are responsible for the safety of their swimmers and allowing dependency on goggles should be avoided at all costs. All risk factors that can cause disorientation and surprise can greatly affect your child’s safety. This is because children can see clearly with goggles and without them the vision is blurred. Children should be adjusted to the way their eyes can see in the water without them so they may find a safe destination if needed in an accident or a fall.
I have had many experiences as a swim instructor where an older sibling who has graduated swim lessons and was completely water safe switch to exclusively wearing goggles, join a younger sibling, and enter the pool without them. Their reaction was panic, skills are forgotten in that moment, and they had to be rescued.
Children also lose body position that is required to move safely and efficiently in the water by trying to keep their eyes dry and the head out of the water. In swim lessons I call this “popping your head up” and “getting stuck.” The head leans back, the body falls into a vertical position, and any forward progress needed to move through the water will stop and the child will go under (if not immediately, then eventually, as it is very tiring.) A child can literally be within inches of me, a wall, or a step and never be able to reach if they do not lean forward and put their face in the water to regain a horizontal body position while kicking.
The technical term given to this loss of body position and getting stuck mentioned above is called “ACTIVE DROWNING!” It is NOT treading water!
Encourage your children to get their faces wet in the bath, pour water over their heads without covering their eyes or wiping their face afterward, encourage them to look around and find toys with their eyes. Anything you can do to make your child comfortable with their faces in the water with their eyes open will progress them faster in lessons than ANY OTHER skill I teach! It is truly one of the biggest hurdles in swim lesson progression.
Save those goggles for swim team practice and races and encourage play without them, even if you have a great swimmer on your hands. I encourage goggles to be used in moderation and very, very rarely allow them in lessons unless the children can still demonstrate swimming safely without any signs or symptoms of fear and anxiety at each lesson.