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No matter whether you're an Olympic swimmer or you're someone who doesn't like to swim, your kids should learn this life skill. You can't be next to them every second, so they must be able to relax in the water and get themselves to safety.

Daily repetition matters when a kid is learning to swim. It can be 20 minutes in a lesson or an hour practicing for a couple of weeks.

Swimming has its educational value - mental, moral, and physical - in giving you a sense of mastery over an element, and of power of saving life, and in the development of wind and limb.

All Norwegian children learn to swim when they are very young because if you can't swim it is difficult to find a place to bathe.

Swimming is great because there are levels of goals. First, when I was four, it was making it to the other end and overcoming the fear of standing up in front of everybody at a swim meet because I was such a shy kid.

I grew up in Florida, so you start swimming at the age of 1, really. By 10, I was competitive swimming, and by 12, I had aspirations to be the best in the world.

I swam at school a lot. Long-distance swimming in pools, and diving, then when we moved to Hastings when I was 13 I used to swim in the sea all the time; I loved it out of season and when it was rough.

I didn't learn to swim until I was 21 or something because I grew up in the mountains in Wyoming and all the water is glacier runoff and cold.

Growing up in Alaska, they don't really teach you to swim there. I learned to swim just a few summers ago with Olympic gold medalist Amanda Beard. She did great, and right after that I went to get scuba certified. I had fun with it. I didn't really get scared, but some people thought that was a risk.

As a young child, I suffered from poor health. My parents encouraged me to swim, which really improved my condition.