THE ISR DIFFERENCE
ISR lessons are designed for ANY child over 6 months of age. This is not a traditional swim class where they will be playing in the pool with other kids like a "Mommy and Me" or "Water Babies" class; this is a behaviorally based swim program that teaches survival swimming and Self-Rescue™ skills. This is a course designed to teach your child and their body how to respond and rescue themselves in a potential aquatic emergency situation. Parents do not get into the pool until the last week of lessons.
Before you take your baby to the local pool for swim lessons, make sure you've given equal consideration to the critical importance of swimming and water safety techniques. ISR is the safest swim instruction method nationwide, providing behaviorally based instruction techniques to ensure that your child is learning Self-Rescue™ skills and the competence required to enjoy the water. No other swim
ISR
TRADITIONAL LESSONS
A team of Nurses review your child's unique medical history to assure that they can safely participate in lessons. Any medical issues that may affect the safety of lessons will be further reviewed and discussed with your child's highly trained instructor. Any add-optional protocols that are necessary are implemented during each and every ISR lesson.
Front desk staff answers the phone, takes your child's name, age, and your information down, and your child is ready to begin lessons. Very rarely is health information ever considered, except for when you sign the waiver at your child's first lesson.
REGISTRATION PROCESS
Infant Swimming Resource
Traditional Lessons
program offers a proven system for safely teaching your child to enjoy the fun of
swimming, while at the same time teaching life saving skills that save lives.
There are thousands of competing swim programs, and parents can easily find a person or an organization willing to teach swimming to young children. Don't trust your child's safety to anyone. Do your research and compare programs. Your child should not need floaties after completing swim lessons. ISR gives your child the COMPETENCE that leads to CONFIDENCE.
Instructors are the most highly trained and qualified in any swimming program in the country and must undergo strict re-certification testing annually. Each instructor is academically trained and tested in areas such as child development, learning theory, behavioral science, anatomy, physiology and physics as they relate to infants and young children in aquatic environments to provide the safest lesson possible for your child. Instructors spend a minimum of 60 hours of hands-on, supervised, in-water training working with actual students and are also CPR & First Aid Certified.
Instructors are often former high school or recreational swimmers who return from college and lifeguard/teach swimming during the summer months. They may or may not be CPR and First Aid certified and may or may not have experience with children in or out of the water.
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INSTRUCTOR TRAINING
ISR's lesson structure is based on extensive research in the areas of child learning. Short (10 minute lessons), frequent (5 day/week) lessons have been proven to maximize sensorimotor learning and retention in children. Not only does the child accommodate to the instructor because of the repetitive nature of lessons, but the short lesson takes into account the body's physiological response to exercise in the water. Even though the water is heated, it is still cooler than a child's body temperature, so anything longer than 10 minutes, a child gets cold. Muscle fatigue follows temperature fatigue and learning becomes inefficient. No ISR lesson is ever longer than 10 minutes.
Lessons are usually once per week, based on convenience. Children take half of the lesson getting used to their instructor and by then their attention is somewhere else. They take a week off, forget the instructor, return for lessons and start the cycle again. Even though the water is heated, their muscles become too cold to learn efficiently for the remaining 15 minutes they share with a group of 4+ students to their one instructor. Students are sitting waiting their turn for most of the lesson time.
LESSON STRUCTURE
ISR is NATIONALLY recognized as the SAFEST swim program for infants and children. Aside from its National Registration (described above), our highly trained instructors are vigilant in assessing your child's physical response to lessons, temperature or muscle fatigue and hyponatremia. Your child is the ONLY child in the pool with his/her instructor and the sole focus during each lesson. No child is ever put in a situation where they are struggling for air. If your child shows signs of fatigue, their lesson ends, and they recover outside of the pool. Instructors monitor bowel, urine, diet and sleep patterns in order to assure there are no signs of dehydration, hypernatremia, pending illnesses, or other factors affecting safety and efficiency of learning.
Instructors are often recreational or high school swimmers giving lessons to earn money over the summer with minimal training. They most likely do not know about a child's physiological response to the water and exercise. They are both, supervising and teaching 4+ students at one time. Health questions are not asked prior to each lesson, and little or no measures are taken to ensure that your child is not drinking water for 30 minutes, or becoming fatigued or dehydrated.
SAFETY PROTOCOLS
EVERY child of EVERY ABILITY learns how to save him/herself in the water. Infants 6 to 12 months learn to hold their breath, roll back to float, rest, and breathe completely unassisted, and maintain this lifesaving position until help arrives. Children 1-6 years old learn to swim with their head in the water, roll to their back to float, rest, and breathe, and flip over to continue swimming. They repeat this until reaching the side or steps. Once skilled each child practices their skills fully clothed. Children first develop COMPETENCE in the water, then CONFIDENCE, which then turns into fun and enjoyment. ISR has over 800 DOCUMENTED cases of children using their skills to save themselves.
Traditional swim lessons teach the child the water is a fun place where someone or something else will support them and keep them afloat. They learn to use floatation devices that provide a false sense of security and can easily fall off or put children in a compromising position. Fun and enjoyment comes first, confidence second. Competence in the water is often not ever assessed or given the importance it warrants. There are many cases where children who have taken traditional swim lesson have drowned or nearly drowned because their survival skills were non-existent
WHAT YOUR CHILD WILL LEARN
Your child will have the skills and confidence to swim independently and save him/herself in the water typically after 4-6 weeks of lessons.
This depends on the teacher and most instructors can't really give you a time frame. Students sometimes attend for a year or more before developing true independent swimming skills.