Do goggles help or hinder in the learn to swim process? I know over the years I have experienced many parents with strong opinions on the matter. The majority of concerns seem to concentrate on the child's ability to get to safety without goggles if their learning has been conducted with them. "if my child always wears goggles and falls in the pool without them, they will panic and forget their training". Will they? I can't answer that question and I certainly don't want to conduct tests to figure it out. Let's look at what we do know...
Swimming lessons are designed to practice a skill set, in different ways, but over and over until they become automated. Automation is the ability to act without really thinking because the behavior has been over-learned. The task can be performed with little or no thought. An example of this in young children might be breath control. Teaching a child to submerge on verbal cues, becomes automated to the point where the verbal cues can be dropped and the child automatically recognises that they are about to submerge and holds their breath. Another example might be the automatic action of turning around when entering the pool from the side so that they are back facing the wall. The point is if an action is automated it requires little to no thought and external influences will have little to no effect on the action. Driving a car is automated, it's scary but how many times have you arrived at a destination and realised you have been so busy thinking about other things that you don't even know how you got there. The fact that you forgot your sunglasses might be annoying because of the glare but it doesn't make you forget how to drive the car does it?
Why wear goggles if we don't have to though? We aren't advocating for a second that every child should wear goggles but there are certain situations where it definitely helps...
Many kids are scared of what is under the water and it suddenly becomes less scary when you can see, especially if the water is filled with lots of bright and colourful hidden treasures or clear familiar faces.
Other kids don't like the feeling of the water in their eyes. Perhaps they have been scarred by a past experience in an overly chlorinated environment or the PH was out and they found the water stingy on their eyes? Maybe they are one of those kids who spends their entire time underwater and after playing for an hour in the pool their eyes are just wrecked?
For older kids, wearing goggles helps with underwater orientation especially when they are learning to stroke and need to be conscious of their head position and surroundings.
Submerging is a crucial part of the learn to swim process. We can't teach a child to swim properly without putting their eyes in the water and in my view if they need to wear goggles to achieve that, then so be it.
From a teaching perspective, it's not uncommon to feel parent's eyeballs burning into the back of your skull as precious time is soaked up putting little Johny's goggles back on for the 99th time in a 30 minute class, especially when their child little Jimmy, who is waiting ever so patiently, doesn't want or need goggles.
My advice is this - don't introduce goggles early if the child is submerging happily without them. When/if you see signs that an unwillingness to put eyes in is hindering the learn to swim process, then consider some goggles. Invest in a pair that fit well and are comfortable. Take good care of your goggles, follow manufacturer's instructions for use so that they continue to fit well and stay water-tight. But, don't create a dependency, give them opportunities to learn and play without the goggles too.
