Have you ever wondered why we teach children to swim with a flat body position? In this Swim Tip, we discuss the importance of correct body position. We also show you the best way to submerge your child in the water, in order to teach them correct body position.
Swim Tips: Floating
Do you know why floating on your back is important? What is the best way to teach this skill to your child?
We will help you answer these questions in this edition of Swim Tips!
Swim Tips: Entries and Exits
Do you and your children know the best way to enter and exit a pool? We will show you how to enter and exit a pool safely in this week’s Swim Tip!
Swim Tips: Swimming Over Winter
In this Swim Tip, we discuss the benefits of continuous swimming lessons over winter. We also debunk some of the myths that surround swimming over winter.
The most important reason to continue swimming lessons over winter is for your child’s safety! We can never stress this point enough. Please share this video with your loved ones so we can spread this message! #justkeepswimming
The three things you can do if your child cries during their swimming lesson
You’ve attended swimming lessons with your child every week since they were 3 months old. You’ve watched your child improve each lesson, and they’re at the stage where they can swim without your help. Your child’s teacher has just told you that, “your child is ready to move up to the next level and swim without you”. You get to your child’s first solo lesson, and instead of watching them swim like a fish, you watch them cry for you and refuse to swim.
As teachers, this scenario is one we see often, and parents ask us what they can do to help. Rest assured that this is quite natural, and that there is no ‘normal’ here. Swimming lessons can be like the first day you left your child at daycare. Some children will confidently run off with their new friends and have great adventures, while other children will be scared and let everyone in the area know about it.
For children that have been in swimming lessons from an early age, this ‘fear’ stems from the fact that they have only swum with their parents. Although their teacher has been with them every step of the way, the child has always had their parents within arms length, and therefore hasn’t had to trust their teacher. For children that have never had a swimming lesson before, the whole experience can be overwhelming. They have to develop trust in their teacher (who is a complete stranger), and they are in an unfamiliar environment.
No matter which category your child falls into, there are three simple suggestions you can use to help your child if they are upset or scared of swimming without you. Remember, swimming teachers are there to help build your child’s confidence in the water, and developing trust with you and your child is naturally part of this process.
1. Go away and come back later
As hard as it is to leave their upset child, the first thing parents can do is to walk away. Go outside and have a coffee. Or perhaps hide some place where you can see them, but they can’t see you. This will give your child’s teacher the chance to show them that swimming lessons without a parent can be fun. This also lets your child forget about needing their parents and allow them to develop trust in their teacher. After a few lessons of doing this, your child will stop crying because they will feel comfortable doing their lesson without you in the water.
2. Arrive at swimming in ‘good’ time
Our second tip is to make sure you arrive at your child’s lesson in good time. If you arrive too early, it allows your child to get worked up and emotional about getting in by themselves. If you arrive late, the rush will likely cause you and your child to be in a stressed and emotional state before the lesson starts.
3. ‘Talk up’ swimming with your child
The third and most important thing you can do is to show them positive emotions about swimming lessons. Children can sense your emotions and can tell if you’re upset about seeing them upset. This in turn can make them even more upset. You need to try and keep a check on your emotions. Instead of worrying if your child is going to cry, talk to them about how awesome their lesson will be. Reinforce that you’re proud of them, and that their instructor will keep them safe.
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Swim Tips: Turn Arounds
Welcome to this week’s Swim Tip!
At Splash-A-Bout Swim School, we want your children to know what to do if they accidentally fall into the pool. We believe that they should know how to turn themselves around and swim back to the closest wall. In this Swim Tip, we talk about the importance of turn arounds and teaching your child to swim to the wall. We also show you some examples of how we teach this important life saving skill.
Swim Tips: Breath Control
Welcome to our very first Swim Tip! In this Swim Tip we discuss Breath Control.
We cover why breath control is so important, and how you can teach your child breath control at home. We’ll also show you how we teach breath control at Splash-A-Bout Swim School!
We’re posting a new Swim Tip every week, so stay tuned!
Drowning Really Is Silent
The following story was posted on our facebook page. You might be doing the right thing by having your children enrolled in swimming lessons, but can you say the same for your friends and family’s children? Please make sure they understand the importance of learning to swim and water safety.
I ran into the ER with mismatched clothes and wet hair. “My daughter was just brought in. She was in a pool accident.” I said. A pool accident. That’s what they’d called it when my friend’s little girl drowned a few years earlier. I wondered what it meant at the time but now, I couldn’t bring myself to say “my daughter almost drowned”.
We’d celebrated my oldest son’s birthday with a pool party. Everyone had a great time and my 2-year-old daughter loved splashing around in the water in her life jacket. We are careful around water. I thought I knew how quickly an accident could happen. As we were packing up to leave I removed her life jacket, wrapped her up in a towel and put her on a deck chair. “I go hot tub”, she said. “No.” I told her. The hot tub was one of her favorite things but I knew that once I she got in it would take me forever to get her back out again. “It’s time to go home now”. I left her sitting on the deck chair as I packed up a few things. We had 6 adults standing there so I felt like I could relax a bit. After all, what could go wrong with so much supervision? The truth is, you can NEVER relax when you have kids around the water. Never.
A few minutes later something jerked me to attention and I looked around for my daughter. She was nowhere to be seen. I scanned the pool first but she wasn’t there. The gate was open so I thought she may have wandered out and worried about cars I nearly went there first. Now I am so glad I didn’t. There are 4 foot tall bushes between the pool and the hot tub that have grown thicker over time so I ran over there to check the other side before I went looking outside of the gate. What I saw as I came around the bushes horrified me. My daughter was face down in the center of the hot tub . . . and I had no idea how long she’d been in there.
I screamed for my husband, “She’s in the water!” and went running for the hot tub, jumping in fully clothed. I don’t know if it was the shock of the situation or the fact that I was only a month out from my c-section and hadn’t fully recovered yet but I couldn’t get my body to move the way I wanted. I couldn’t get my daughter’s head above the water fast enough. I’d managed to push her closer to the edge and by then my husband was at the edge. He was holding one of the twins and reaching into the water with his other hand. They always say that time slows down in an emergency but it’s an odd sensation when it happens to you. What must have only been a matter of seconds felt like an eternity. My husband quickly passed off the baby and began frantically working on my daughter. She wasn’t breathing. That image will stay with me for as long as I live. Her eyes were open but there was no life in them. I’ve taken many CPR classes in the past but it’s been a while since I had a refresher and I froze. What was I supposed to do? What was the first step? There was no room for any thought in my mind except that my child was not breathing.
My husband did a Heimlich maneuver of sorts and pushed some water out of her tiny body. Reflexively, she began to vomit. Finally she coughed and took a breath.
We had 911 on the line and, right or not, since she was breathing we felt like we could get her to the hospital faster than we could direct the ambulance into our community pool so my husband grabbed her and rushed to the hospital. I followed behind after changing out of my wet clothes and making sure the other kids were settled with my mom. Thank goodness we had help available so I could rush out the door and follow them.
At the ER they took me straight back. My daughter was sitting on my husband’s lap on the gurney in a large room surrounded by a team of doctors. Her oxygen levels were in the 80s. That was bad they told me. Her carbon dioxide levels were high. She had fluid in her lungs. I was able to give my daughter a quick hug. When she saw me she teared up and with her sweet little voice said “mommy”. The doctor said they needed to intubate her to help her breath while her lungs healed. He kept telling me she was going to be fine but I didn’t believe him yet. My daughter was sedated and intubated and we were told she’d need to be life-flighted to the children’s hospital. The team from the children’s hospital arrived and after stabilizing her they loaded her up and wheeled her away, leaving my husband and me standing in the hallway holding my daughter’s wet bathing suit as strangers took my daughter to the helicopter that would fly away without us.
How does this happen? It took only minutes. There were plenty of adults around. None of us heard a thing. Most moms have seen the “Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning” post that has made it’s way around Facebook. We’ve heard that drowning is silent but until you see how quickly and quietly it can happen it doesn’t really sink in. My daughter made no noise . . . she couldn’t. She didn’t splash. She didn’t yell for help. We were all standing ten feet away while she drowned.
At the hospital we were told they see their worst case scenarios at family gatherings when there’s plenty of people to supervise. Everyone thinks someone else is watching. Everyone thinks they can relax.
We got off very, VERY lucky. The doctor told us my daughter likely had another 30 seconds before her heart stopped. When I think of how close things were I get chills. After 24 hours on the ventilator and another 24 hours in the hospital for observation my daughter was able to come home with us, but not before yelling at her nurse for pulling off the tape that held her IV’s in place.
Today she’s every bit as stubborn, smart, and wonderful as she was before her accident. Whenever I work up the courage to go back to the pool with my kids, you had better believe that I will not be taking my eyes off of them for a second.
You cannot relax around kids and water. Drowning can happen in seconds. It’s quick and it’s quiet and it can happen to your child. Fortunately our experience had a happy ending but we’re all feeling a bit traumatized and that experience is going to stay with me forever. The water is never going to look quite the same.
Stay healthy in the pool with these 3 tips:
Swimming Caps Compulsory
All children are asked to wear caps during their lessons, regardless of hair length. Not only do caps assist with swimming by keeping hair away from the face as well as making the body more streamline, they make our pool a more hygienic place to swim for everybody. We have some pretty cool swimming caps available to purchase at the swim shop!
No Band-aids or Bobby Pins
Please remember that our swimming pool is a Bandaid and Bobby Pin free zone. Bandaids and Bobby Pins come lose easily in the swimming pool creating an unclean environment for our swimmers. Please help us to keep our pool clean by removing bandaids and bobby pins before your child enters the water.
No Sitting on the Stairs
Please don’t allow children to wait or play on the pool stairs before/after their lesson. It creates a safety hazard as this is the only entry/exit point for the pool. It also distracts instructors and other students who are currently participating in lessons.
BONUS TIP: Find us on Facebook!
Don’t forget you can find us on Facebook! Make sure you like us on Facebook to keep up to date on everything going on here at Splash! *Class Info *Photos *Give Aways *Aqua Promos *Updates *Swim Shop Sales *Achievements *Competitions *Holidays and more …
Don’t pass on Illnesses
There are quite a few illnesses making the rounds amongst families at the moment. Although regular swimming lessons is important for faster learning, it is also important that your child gets healthy quickly and that we keep Splash a healthy environment.
Please remember that your child is entitled to 5 make-up lessons per swim block (when they pay for the swim block up front) if you ring to cancel before their scheduled lesson. Ringing up to cancel means we can condense classes or book in make-ups which keeps our running costs, and in turn your swim fees, as low as possible.
When you bring a sick child swimming it’s not just other children you put at risk of contracting the disease. Our teachers are most susceptible as they spend hours each day in the pool.