Spring is nearly over and we are diving headfirst into summer. Keeping kids busy and active during the school year was interesting this year, to say the least, but parents are still charged with filling their children’s days during the summer months, too. Infant swim lessons are a great way to keep children cool and active, and they are also the best way to ensure the safety of your children. Summer brings a slew of activities upon all of us, and some of the most popular summer activities are centered around water.
Read More: How To Introduce Your Child To A Swimming Pool
When parents do not invest in teaching their children caution and prevention around water, injury or even death can occur. An average of 800 childhood deaths are due to drowning each year in the United States, and over half of those deaths occur to children under 5 years old. It is vital that parents in every state and every area prevent drowning by enrolling their children in infant swim lessons so that they can learn to self-rescue.
What Is ISR?
ISR is the acronym for a specific type of child and infant swim lessons called “Infant Self Rescue”. These lessons are taught in short, 10-minute periods 5 days a week. While this ten minute period may seem short for infant swim lessons, it is important to remember that this time period gives your child one-on-one instruction with a licensed teacher for every second of that time.
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While this time period is short, it is also very intense. It ensures that the child isn’t ending the lesson exhausted or working too hard to maintain their breath. Stopping the lesson before the child is exhausted ends the session on a positive note and the child will better retain their newly acquired skills while maintaining healthy respect, not fear, of the water.
Why ISR
ISR believes that homeowners and parents should use precautions like fences around the pool careful supervision, and alarms to prevent drowning. However, we could do everything right and these lines of defense can and do still break down. Children are smart, inquisitive, and capable, and have the unique ability to overcome obstacles that we set up for them. ISR is the type of infant swim lessons that teaches our children the skills to (potentially) save themselves if they find themselves in the water alone.
What your child will learn, and the way he or she will learn it is what makes ISR so different from traditional infant swim lessons. ISR emphasizes competence, which leads to confidence, and provides the foundation for a lifetime of safe enjoyment in and around water.
Children ages 6 months to 6 years are encouraged to participate in ISR lessons. Depending on their ages, they will learn different things. In every case, he or she will at least learn to roll onto his or her back to float, rest, and breathe, and to maintain this position until help arrives. The last week or two of the lessons in each case is done in full clothing.
While this may seem like overkill, many drownings occur when families are not enjoying the water together. Your child needs to know what it feels like to fall into the pool in shoes and socks, jeans, and a t-shirt or sweater. The heavier, the better. Teaching your child how to save themselves in they fall into the pool is one of the greatest gifts you could possibly give to them. Allowing your child to feel the weight of wet clothing and teaching them how to save their own life while being supervised by a professional is the only thing that could possibly make that gift better.
Imagining the loss or injury of a child is not the way parents want to spend their fun summer months, but there will be less worry in future summers if parents enroll their children in infant swim lessons or water safety courses. Teach your children to be safe in and around the water, and you’re not only giving them the freedom to be independent during their summer fun, but you’re also giving yourself the gift of a mind and heart at peace.
WANT TO READ MORE?
Check out this article on Summer Safety Guide For Toddlers.
