Designing for Attention: Practical ADHD-Informed Strategies for the Pool Deck

Small changes to instruction, transitions, waiting time, feedback, and the environment can help aquatic professionals teach swimmers with ADHD more effectively.

October is ADHD Awareness Month, which makes it a good time to look at our own instruction with fresh eyes. As someone who has lived with ADHD since childhood, is raising two children with it, and teaches many students with it, I have seen firsthand how much a learning environment can either support or work against a child's attention. The encouraging news for our field is that most ADHD-informed strategies are simply strong teaching practices that benefit every swimmer in the water.

Most aquatic professionals have taught the swimmer who seems to be everywhere except where we asked them to be. You explain the next drill while they are underwater, or you ask the group to wait on the wall and they slip off before their turn. You give three directions, and they complete the first, forget the second, and create their own version of the third. Meanwhile, another swimmer sits quietly, appears completely cooperative, and still misses half of what you said.

When this happens, our instinct is usually to tell the swimmer to “pay attention!” or “ FOCUS please!” Attention is shaped by many factors, though, including working memory, impulse control, sensory input, motivation, task complexity, fatigue, emotional regulation, distractions in the environment, and how long a learner is being asked to wait. For children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), many of those demands carry extra weight. Aquatic professionals don't need to become ADHD specialists to respond well, but understanding how attention and executive function work can help us design lessons that give more children access to learning.

ADHD Is Common and Looks Different from Child to Child

ADHD is far more common in our lessons than many instructors realize. According to the 2022 National Survey of Children's Health, an estimated 7.1 million U.S. children ages 3 to 17, about 11.4 percent, had ever received an ADHD diagnosis, and approximately 6.5 million, or 10.5 percent, had current ADHD (Danielson et al., 2024). In practical terms, a program teaching a few hundred children each week is almost certainly teaching dozens with ADHD. Most of the time, instructors may or may not have some idea which swimmers those are.

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder involving persistent difficulties with attention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, or some combination of the three, and it varies widely from one child to the next. The swimmer who can't stay on the wall may have ADHD, and so may the child quietly watching another lane while the instructor is talking. One child may interrupt constantly, while another rarely interrupts but struggles to hold onto a three-part direction. A swimmer may also be intensely focused during a favorite activity and seem unable to attend during another, which can confuse instructors who assume that a child who can focus sometimes should be able to focus on demand.

ADHD frequently involves challenges with executive function, the set of mental skills that includes working memory, inhibition, planning, organization, getting started on a task, and shifting attention between activities. Swim lessons draw on every one of those skills at the same time. A swimmer may need to remember an instruction, hold back the urge to jump in, keep track of other swimmers, manage their body in the water, take in feedback, and prepare for what comes next. Many difficulties that look like “swimming problems” are actually signs that the cognitive load of the task has outgrown what the swimmer can manage in that moment.

Pay Attention to the Quiet Swimmer

Our cultural image of ADHD has long centered on the highly active child, and that picture can shape which swimmers get our attention. National data from 2020 through 2022 show that boys are diagnosed far more often than girls, and researchers continue to examine how much of that gap reflects differences in recognition, diagnostic practices, and how symptoms present (Martin, 2024). Girls are more likely to show less conspicuous inattentive symptoms, such as trouble sustaining attention and being easily distracted. Boys are more often identified through visible hyperactive and impulsive behaviors like running, climbing, interrupting, and struggling to wait.

On the pool deck, this means the swimmer who keeps leaving the wall will almost always get noticed, while the swimmer who sits quietly and misses the instruction may slip through. Instructors should never try to diagnose ADHD, but we can broaden our sense of what an attention challenge looks like. A more useful question to carry onto the deck is whether our instruction is reaching each swimmer in front of us. That question applies equally to the child who is loud and the child who is still, and it keeps the focus on something we can actually change.

What Michael Phelps and the Research Suggest About the Pool

Michael Phelps offers our field a compelling example. He has spoken publicly about being diagnosed with ADHD as a child and struggling in school with restlessness and focus. Swimming gave him structure, clear goals, constant movement, immediate feedback, and a level of focus he had not found elsewhere. His experience should never be presented as evidence that swimming cures ADHD, but it does show how strongly an environment can influence which capabilities a learner is able to access.

The pool has several features that can work in favor of children with ADHD. It has clear physical boundaries, movement is expected, tasks can be repeated many times, and progress and feedback can be immediate and concrete. Research on physical activity and ADHD increasingly suggests that structured movement can support attention and executive function, although exercise is best understood as an addition to established ADHD care. Small swimming-specific studies have reported improvements in inhibitory control, selective attention, cognitive flexibility, and motor coordination (Hattabi et al., 2022; Da Silva et al., 2020), though the sample sizes are modest and the literature is still developing. For instructors, the practical question is whether our lessons are designed in ways that allow movement to help.

Eight Changes Instructors Can Make Tomorrow

1. Reduce the number of instructions competing for working memory

Long, multi-step directions are one of the most common sources of difficulty for swimmers with ADHD. Consider an instruction like "Push off in streamline, kick six times, roll onto your back, take three breaths, roll back over, swim freestyle to the flags, and then climb out." An experienced swimmer may process that as one familiar sequence, but a beginner may be trying to hold seven separate instructions while also managing balance, buoyancy, breathing, water on their face, noise, and other swimmers. Starting with "Push off and give me six kicks," and adding the next piece once that succeeds, keeps the task within reach. When a swimmer keeps forgetting an instruction, shortening it will usually help far more than repeating it louder.

2. Show before you explain

Swim instruction can become surprisingly verbal, and for many swimmers a five-second demonstration delivers more useful information than a thirty-second explanation. Pairing short language with something the swimmer can see allows the demonstration to carry part of the cognitive work. When teaching a streamline, for example, an instructor might show the position, give one cue such as "Squeeze your ears," and then let the swimmer try it. This approach shortens the time a child has to sit and listen while also giving them a clear picture to imitate.

3. Audit waiting time

Waiting asks a great deal of inhibition and sustained attention, two areas that are often especially hard for children with ADHD. Watching a group lesson and counting how much time each child actually spends moving can be eye-opening, particularly in a six-child class where one swimmer practices while five wait. Reducing that idle time is possible without sacrificing supervision or structure. Waiting swimmers can practice a stationary skill, rehearse a body position, kick while holding the wall, complete a controlled equipment task, work at a station, or watch for one specific thing in another swimmer's attempt.

4. Give movement a job

Some children regulate their attention through movement, and repeatedly telling them to stop moving tends to increase friction without improving learning. Channeling that movement safely is usually more productive. A swimmer might retrieve equipment, demonstrate the next activity, kick while listening, move between designated markers, or practice a body position while receiving instructions. Purposeful movement within clear boundaries helps the child stay regulated while keeping the lesson safe and organized.

5. Prepare swimmers for transitions

Transitions can be difficult for children who become deeply absorbed in an activity or have trouble shifting their attention. A simple warning, such as "Two more turns, then we're changing to backstroke" or "After this jump, we're moving to the shallow end," tells the child what is ending and what comes next. That predictability reduces unnecessary cognitive demand and lowers the chance of frustration when an engaging activity stops. Building transition cues into routine lesson language makes them easy to use consistently.

6. Make feedback immediate and specific

Specific feedback gives a swimmer something concrete to repeat on the next attempt. "Good job" offers encouragement, while "Your arms stayed tight against your ears all the way to the flags" tells the swimmer exactly what worked. Children with ADHD may benefit particularly from feedback that arrives close to the action it describes. Aquatics gives us a natural advantage here, since we can often respond within seconds of an attempt, and making a habit of using that window strengthens learning for everyone in the class.

7. Ask the swimmer

Asking swimmers what helps them learn may be the most underused strategy on the pool deck. Questions like "Do you want me to show you or tell you?", "What helps you remember what comes next?", "Would it help to go first?", and "Where should we stand so you can hear me better?" often reveal more than instructors expect. Parents are valuable partners as well, since many already know whether their child responds best to visual directions, advance warnings, shorter explanations, specific wording, or chances to move. A thirty-second conversation with a caregiver can save several lessons of trial and error.

8. Regulate your own emotions first

Teaching a swimmer who repeatedly forgets directions, leaves the wall, or interrupts can test the patience of even the most experienced instructor. Frustration and annoyance are normal human reactions, especially in a loud, busy environment where safety is always on our minds. Children are remarkably skilled at reading an adult's tone, posture, and facial expression, and a swimmer who senses irritation often becomes more anxious, more impulsive, or more withdrawn. An instructor who stays calm gives the child a steady presence to borrow from, which researchers and educators often describe as co-regulation.

Building a few personal regulation habits can help instructors respond with intention when frustration starts to rise. Taking a slow breath before speaking, lowering your voice, or pausing for a few seconds to reset the activity can keep a tense moment from escalating. It also helps to name the feeling privately and then ask yourself what the swimmer needs in that moment, which shifts your attention back to problem solving. When you notice frustration building lesson after lesson with the same child, that pattern is a useful signal to check in with a supervisor or revisit the task design together.

The language we choose in those moments carries real weight, because children often hold onto the words adults use about them long after the lesson ends. Statements like "You're just being lazy," "You're choosing not to listen to me," or "Do I need to put you in the baby class if you're going to act like this?" shame the child and rarely improve what happens next. For a swimmer with ADHD, these comments can reinforce a painful message they may already hear at school and at home, and they can quietly erode the trust and safety a child needs to take risks in the water. Instructors can redirect behavior just as effectively with calm, specific language such as "Let's try that again, and this time watch me first," or "I need your eyes on me for this part, then you can go."

As someone who grew up with ADHD, I can still recall how certain words from adults made me feel, and I suspect many readers can too. Instructors can hold firm expectations and correct unsafe behavior while protecting a child's dignity throughout the lesson. When a swimmer leaves class feeling capable and respected, they are far more likely to return ready to try again, and that willingness to keep trying is where most of the learning happens.

The 60-Second Deck Scan

A brief scan before class can help instructors catch the most common sources of friction. Instructors can check where they plan to give instructions and whether swimmers will be facing the busiest part of the pool. They can consider how long children will be waiting, how many instructions they tend to give at once, and what transitions are coming that might need a warning. Finally, they can look for places where a demonstration could replace some of the verbal explanation. None of these adjustments requires knowing a swimmer's diagnosis, which makes them easy to apply across every class.

A Coaching Tool for Supervisors

Aquatic directors and supervisors can bring these ideas into instructor observations by watching the learning environment alongside the skill progression. When an instructor gives long verbal explanations, a supervisor might ask whether part of it could be shown instead. When several directions are given at once, a helpful prompt is to ask what single thing the swimmer needs to remember right now. Significant wall time invites a conversation about giving waiting swimmers something purposeful to do, and repeated corrections for movement can lead to brainstorming ways to build that movement into the activity.

The same approach works for transitions, feedback, and persistent struggles. Abrupt transitions open a discussion about how to signal changes in advance, and general praise can be followed by asking what exactly the swimmer did well. When an instructor says a swimmer "just doesn't listen," a supervisor can respond by asking what has been changed to help that swimmer listen. Over time, this kind of coaching moves staff conversations away from labeling children and toward improving instruction.

A 20-Minute In-Service You Can Run This Month

For managers looking for an October staff-training topic, these ideas fit easily into a short in-service. During the first few minutes, ask staff to name behaviors they commonly describe as distracted, impulsive, not listening, unable to wait, or forgetful, without discussing diagnoses. Next, briefly explain working memory, inhibition, attention regulation, and transitions, and then give staff a seven-step swim instruction to repeat from memory. Most instructors grasp the concept immediately once they experience that load themselves.

For the middle portion, give each instructor a common scenario, such as a swimmer who keeps leaving the wall, forgets multi-step instructions, watches another class, struggles when activities change, interrupts turns, or becomes frustrated after correction. Ask them to redesign the environment or the instruction to address it. In the final minutes, each instructor commits to testing one strategy during the coming week. At the next staff meeting, asking what changed when they adjusted their teaching first gives the training a real chance of reaching the water.

Keeping Safety at the Center

Aquatics differs from many classroom settings in one important way, because attention in the water can directly affect safety. Instructors cannot overlook impulsive jumping, unsafe entries, leaving designated areas, or behavior that puts another swimmer at risk. ADHD-informed teaching keeps those boundaries firmly in place while making them easier for swimmers to understand, anticipate, and follow. Clear and concise rules, predictable routines, strategic instructor positioning, fewer distractions during safety instructions, and immediate correction when behavior creates risk all work together. A supportive learning environment and strong safety expectations reinforce each other.

Looking at the Program as a Whole

Operators and program directors have an opportunity to examine whether their programs as a whole support neurodivergent learners. Enrollment processes can offer families an easy, non-stigmatizing way to share what helps their child learn, and instructor assignments can pair swimmers who need more support with experienced teachers when possible. Directors can also look at whether certain lesson locations are much more distracting than others and whether class structures rely heavily on children sitting and waiting. Staff training on ADHD, autism, executive function, and sensory differences, along with guidance on asking parents about learning needs without requiring unnecessary medical disclosure, rounds out a strong foundation.

Progress assessment deserves particular attention in this review. Programs should check whether swimmers are evaluated primarily on aquatic skills, or whether behavior and compliance are quietly influencing promotion decisions. A quiet, compliant swimmer may or may not be progressing, and a child who moves, interrupts, or needs extra cues may be learning a great deal. Keeping assessment focused on aquatic competence ensures that every swimmer's progress is measured fairly.

Start With One Swimmer

Programs don't need to overhaul their curriculum to begin applying these ideas. Each instructor can choose one swimmer who regularly struggles with attention, waiting, instructions, transitions, or impulsivity and, for one week, change something about the environment before asking that swimmer to change their behavior. That change might mean shortening an instruction, moving where they stand, reducing wait time, demonstrating instead of explaining, giving movement a purpose, warning before a transition, or simply asking what helps. Watching what happens afterward often teaches more than any training session. As you head onto your own deck this week, which swimmer comes to mind first, and what is one thing you could change for them?

Practical Resources for Aquatic Professionals

CDC: ADHD in the Classroom. One of the most transferable resources for instructors, with strategies on movement, transitions, feedback, organizational support, and reducing distractions.

National Institute of Mental Health: ADHD. A reliable introduction to symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and current understanding of the disorder.

CHADD: Resources for Educators. Practical tools for professionals working with children with ADHD, including instructional strategies and behavior supports.

CHADD: Classroom Accommodations. Written for schools, with many recommendations that translate directly to aquatics, such as breaking tasks into smaller components, building in movement, and checking understanding.

Understood: Working Memory. A plain-language explanation of why a learner can understand each part of an instruction and still lose the sequence before finishing it.

Research

Danielson, M. L., Claussen, A. H., Bitsko, R. H., et al. (2024). ADHD prevalence among U.S. children and adolescents in 2022: Diagnosis, severity, co-occurring disorders, and treatment. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 53(3), 343-360.

Da Silva, L. A., Doyenart, R., Salvan, P. H., et al. (2020). Swimming training improves mental health parameters, cognition and motor coordination in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 30(5), 584-592.

Hattabi, S., Forte, P., Kukic, F., et al. (2022). A randomized trial of a swimming-based alternative treatment for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(23), 16238.

Ishii-Takahashi, A., Yoshimaru, Y., Muhammad, D., et al. (2026). Longitudinal MRI studies of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A systematic review. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.

Martin, J. (2024). Why are females less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD in childhood than males? The Lancet Psychiatry, 11(4), 303-310.

About the Author

Angela Wild is a translational specialist in drowning prevention, bridging research, practice, and community implementation. She owns a boutique swim school in San Diego and leads a nonprofit advancing aquatic professionals. With an MA in Motor Learning & Control and an MPH in Community Health Promotion, Angela has been recognized nationally for her contributions to water safety and aquatic education. Connect with Angela at elementalswimsd@gmail.com.

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