Why Should You Take Your Child with SPD For Swimming?
Why Should You Take Your Child with SPD For Swimming?
Children with sensory processing disorders often find it challenging to process information from their senses. That is why it is difficult for them to execute an accurate response right away. They either become hypo-responsive or hyper-responsive.
Research proves that swimming has a therapeutic effect on these children. It can offer them several mental and physical health benefits. For instance, it enhances their motor skills and keeps them calm.
If you want to know more, keep reading the article. It will shed light on why you should take your child with SPD for swimming.
6 Reasons Why Swimming is Better for Children with SPD
Various physical activities are considered advantageous for children with sensory processing disorders. Studies prove that when you take such kids swimming, it increases their self-confidence and strengthens their muscles. It is also the best exercise for promoting body awareness in them. Let’s discuss six reasons why swimming is better for children with SPD:
1. Enhances Motor Skills
The most important reason to take your children with sensory processing disorder swimming is that it improves their motor skills. According to several scientific studies, swimming is instrumental in helping such kids with both fine and gross motor skills.
Being in the water for a particular period is linked to increased sensory input, which promotes motor skills. Swimming is also beneficial in this regard because it offers proprioceptive feedback, which increases awareness about the body’s current mechanical state. As a result, your young one will be able to engage relevant muscles for different types of movement.
Due to the above benefits, your children will be able to walk, hop, jump, run, and excel at other movement capabilities. Parents book Swimming with Dolphins tickets to help their youngsters with SPD learn motor skills by swimming.
2. Keeps Them Calm
This incredible physical activity is instrumental in calming the nervous system of children who have sensory processing disorders. In other words, by taking them for swimming, you can manage their mood irregularities.
Along with physical issues, SPD affects the mental health of these kids. As a result, they often behave strangely and have frequent mood swings. Anxiety, depression, stress, anger, and negative emotions are some of the most common symptoms of sensory processing disorder.
Swimming can substantially help reduce the intensity and frequency of these symptoms. This is because, during swimming, the level of feel-good hormone surges in them, which makes them feel happy and stay positive.
3. Increases Body Awareness
Swimming is regarded as the best bodily activity that increases body awareness in children with SPD. This is one of the most critical reasons why you should take such kids for swimming.
Body awareness problems are common when your child has a sensory processing disorder. The inability to respond to their senses properly causes them to lose track of their body’s position. This results in poor coordination and balance.
When you encourage them to swim, water pressure on their bodies helps them comprehend their position in time and space. Consequently, they will have more body awareness than ever.
4. Strengthens Muscles
Swimming is regarded as a full-body exercise that works most of the body’s muscles, increasing their strength. This is particularly beneficial for children with sensory processing disorders.
SPD can cause abnormalities in the muscle tone of the children, leading to two extreme cases:
- Hypotonus, where muscles are too high
- Hypotonus, where muscles are too low
The above conditions negatively impact their muscular strength. You can help strengthen their muscles by getting them to do a wholesome activity like swimming. Different strokes of swimming are instrumental in engaging the glutes, calf, and hamstring muscles to increase their robustness.
5. Improves Social Behavior
Being a social activity, swimming can significantly improve the social behavior of young ones living with sensory processing disorder. It provides them with an opportunity to meet other kids with similar problems.
Such children often behave oddly around people. Sometimes, they completely isolate themselves, while other times, they exhibit strange attitudes to seek acceptance. The struggle for approval, combined with the inability to understand social cues, leads them to behave inappropriately.
As described earlier, swimming can enhance body awareness and offer peace of mind. These factors equip them with enough ability to understand their environment and behave in a more normal way when around other people.
6. Promotes Self Confidence
Last but not least, another important reason to take your child with SPD to swimming is that it promotes self-confidence. By learning how to swim, they can accomplish a milestone that will boost their self-esteem.
As a parent, you might know that these kids struggle with interacting with other people due to a lack of confidence. As a result, they tend to isolate themselves from the outside atmosphere, which causes depression and anxiety.
This incredible activity inspires them to explore new things and learn more. Over time, this leads to increased confidence. You can book swimming with dolphins tickets to offer your child with SPD a chance to increase their self-confidence.
Conclusion
Children with sensory processing disorders are difficult to manage. However, swimming can help them live a strong and happy life. It enhances muscle strength, improves social behavior, promotes self-esteem, and provides other benefits. If you think your child with SPD should enjoy these advantages, grab a ticket from an online platform.