I agree with this. I was very late to learn how to swim and only learned finally at around age 10.

Previous attempts to teach me to swim used flotation devices. Without them, I was terrified of drowning.

A very smart swimming teacher, seeing my fear, taught me to float on my back, first with her assistance, then without it. Once I could float, she taught me to swim backwards, froggy style. I was afraid even about that, but she said "If you ever find yourself unable to swim, just float!" and I felt confident to do that.

From there, I was comfortable swimming on my front, because once again, I knew how to go on my back and float!

Then the rest was simple skill acquisition.

30 years later, I wish I knew the name of that swim instructor!

We should clarify that PFDs (life-jackets) are probably good for young children and new swimmers. It's the floating toys that might actually be harmful.

And one skill that swimmers need, but cannot really get with an float-assist device, is putting their face in the water. I watched an adult friend learn to swim, and this was REALLY hard for him. Crazy enough - he was ex-Royal Navy submariner, so he had passed basic water survival - he could float on his back, just couldn't do anything beyond that.

PFDs are a safety device, they’re great. If you think your child might be unsupervised, putting one on is safer than not. But as a teaching aide, they’re terrible.

You can’t swim with a lifejacket. You can only float (and in a position that is different from how you would naturally float in water).

Yeah, I wasn't super clear - PFDs are great if a new swimmer just needs to be in the water. My nephews used them at the beach when they were toddlers. But swim lessons were mom/dad/instructor holding them in the water.

> cannot really get with an float-assist device, is putting their face in the water.

We used kickboards for this exact purpose. So you can float face down with arms outstretched holding the board. You can transition to freestyle swimming taking one hand off the board at a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3z1eDDcGE

So it was practised for teaching swimming here in Poland at schools, but these are always in a very shallow pool and supervised too.

They lack the failure mode of floating face down in water, but instead are unsafe to others who can be hit with them. And kids will collide.

The newer foam ones are much softer and safer.

We used the same in school - mostly for training leg movements. Back then, everyone had basic swimming capabilities. But these kickboards are a totally different story than the blue donuts in the videos.

Weird they'd allow that, in the US you have to be able to swim a lap to graduate from Navy bootcamp, no matter which job you're going into.

Arm floaties are a crutch that ought never be used. If your kid isn't strong enough to swim on their own, don't give yourself the false sense of security that comes with floaties.

As an anecdote, they almost killed a friend's daughter a few years ago.

She had jumped and fallen forward, and her arm floaties moved her buoyancy to her stomach-area, forcing her face into the water. Scary stuff.

She was even in a swimming pool she could stand in.

A real life jacket approved by the USCG or similar agency may be more expensive than water wings, but unlike cheap water wings, they are designed to keep the wearer's face out of the water. A type I or II jacket can turn some or most unconsious wearers rightside up.

https://www.boatus.org/life-jackets/types/

I learned to swim using a float shaped like a miniature surfboard that I held out in front of me. This was both supervised and done in water shallow enough that I could stand with my head above the surface. If I had not been allowed access to this I am certain that I would have refused to go in the water at all (I was already very reluctant to do so even with the float).