So you're interested in getting your kids into swimming? If so, I would strongly suggest you take a look at some of your local teams. There are two main groups you can look at. The first is at your local YMCA. In the YMCA groups you tend to only swim against those who swim out of a YMCA affiliated pool. The other main group is USA swimming. There are various recreation facilities and pretty much any place that has a pool has created a program. Both these programs divide the kids into ability level groups where they feel that the kids are challenged but not overwhelmed.
I can mainly speak on behalf of the USA program as I am a coach for the gold swimmers. There are various age groups in swimming, as well as various levels, but you don't need to be an amazing swimmer to join a team. You should enjoy swimming and hopefully want to continue improving. Most of the coaches that I have interacted with enjoy coaching and have a good amount of knowledge in coaching. Most of the organizations make you go through a good amount of training before you receive the clearance to go on deck.
If your child enjoys swimming, USA swimming is a great organization to be a part of as they hold many meets throughout the year. Your swimmer will benefit from the camaraderie of meeting new friends and setting personal goals. Now, I would like to talk about the time commitment. Meets are usually once or twice a month; it's up to the swimmer what they want to sign up for, but there's usually morning and evening sessions, which can be about four hours long between the two sessions, depending on the age group. On meet days I’m usually at the pool for about 10 hours. Oh well, I'm lucky I love my job! You usually don't have to sign up for every meet. In terms of practice sessions, we recommend three to four practices a week for the younger swimmers and then the older swimmers aim to come five times a week. These practices usually vary from an hour to two hours.
There's no doubt in my mind that I would completely recommend signing your child up for swimming on a club or USA team. If they enjoy the water, then this sport is for them. However, if you're trying to get them to learn how to swim, try swim lessons somewhere else first so they have a basic knowledge of the strokes before signing up for a team