Safety Swim

Kids (and babies) are smarter than they appear. While temper tantrums, food fights and toilet training mishaps may cloud their moments of genius, they actually learn and adapt at an incredible rate. It makes sense, because they have such a short time to learn the skills required to become independent and fully functioning adults (whatever that is). 

We realize early on that it’s our job to make sure they learn such skills and swimming crowns the top of the must-teach skill set, provoking parents to sign up for those beloved early am parent and tot lessons. Kids have fun learning to be comfortable in the water but they don’t learn any water safety skills until much later (say kindergarten) because we assume an adult will always be an arm’s length away.
 
But it is possible to teach a baby as young as six months to save its own life should he or she end up in water unattended. It’s a bit of a process and unlike singing “I have a little turtle named Tiny Tim” with mom, challenging a young child to float (and later swim) is slightly lower on the fun scale.

Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) is an American program that is slowly making inroads to Canada. Holly Murray is one of two certified instructors in Canada. She offers ISR at Cardel Place in the NE (weekday afternoons) and at a private pool close to Chinook Mall in the SW (weekday mornings). The water at both locations is warmer than City of Calgary pools.

Lessons are a mere 10 minutes long for ages six months to six years (sounds short but appropriate for the intense level of activity required.) Children take lessons five days per week and the training takes between four and six weeks. And no, lessons are not literally sink or swim. Infants and toddlers are gradually introduced to submersion, learning to identify the feeling of floating in their body.

Are ISR lessons right for you and your child? Murray has trained over 100 children in the past year and most of the moms were looking for peace of mind when on vacation, at the lake or in the pool. These lessons do not teach babies and toddlers to swim, but rather how to prevent drowning. They provide another layer on the prevention list for safety measures around water. The ISR program knows that lifesaving lessons are no replacement for parent supervision and they say so repeatedly in the lessons and on their website. Their motto: dedicated to preventing infant drowning.

And you know what they say about prevention being the best medicine.

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