We at SWIMkids USA know that each child is unique.  They all have their own learning styles; that’s why we have a variety of instructors.  Recently, our instructors did an exercise in how to say the same thing in a different way, in a way that would make each child understand.  Here’s what they came up with.

SWIMkids USA will be closed November 20-27 to celebrate Thanksgiving and to give our staff and pools a break.

We close four weeks each year, leaving 12 - four week billing periods.  Depending on the day of the week, you will receive five lessons some months and three lessons other months, averaging four per month over the year.  The next break will be Christmas week, December 25-January 1.

During breaks, we clean out the Lost & Found, so please check  for any of your families’ belongings before then.

Learning how to swim does not mean that children are completely safe around water. They are safer, but no one is water-safe or drown-proof.

• LEARN TO SWIM - teach your child to swim
• Use layers of protection around your pool.
  • Surround your pool on all four sides with a fence
  • Make sure the gates self-close and self-latch at a height children can’t reach. Lock the gate and place the key high, out of a child’s reach
  • Put a safety net over the pool
  • Use door alarms to alert you whenever anyone leaves the house
• SUPERVISION - There is no substitute for parental vigilance. A responsible adult should be in the pool area within arm’s length of children, providing “touch supervision”.
• Make sure adults are trained in CPR and life saving techniques so they can rescue a child in case of emergency
• Keep rescue equipment (shepherd’s crook or life preserver) and a portable telephone near the pool.

ALSO:

Children drown in BATHTUBS, BUCKETS & TOILETS

• Put toilet lids down. Never leave open buckets of water standing around the house
• Never leave a child unattended (by an responsible adult) in a bathtub!
• At parties, have a designated WATER WATCHER supervising the pool at ALL TIMES. Their job is to keep their eyes on the swimmers. They should not be talking, eating, reading or talking on the phone.

Swimming is learning to balance oneself in the buoyancy of the water. A good instructor will gently bring the child outside his comfort zone each lesson, but not so far as to invoke fear. The gradual path is most often the most successful in this arena. Building trust with the child student in the water is paramount when teaching a child to swim.

Encourage underwater exploration. Let them play on the steps. If they step off into deeper water, calmly and gradually help them back to the step, the side of the pool or rotate them onto their back where they can rest and breath. Let them retrieve toys of rings from the top step, then a lower step and eventually the bottom.

-by SWIMkids USA President Lana Whitehead

We are the Valley’s Water Safety Experts!  We’ve been featured lately on local and national media.

CBS’s Early Show visited SWIMkids USA to learn more about Water Smart Babies.  Along with the Drowning Prevention Coalition of Arizona, SWIMkids USA is helping bring Water Smart Babies from Florida, a program in which a doctor gives a non-binding prescription for swimming lessons at a child’s 9 or 12 month well visit.  Check out the well-done video.

Look at all these great stories from this summer:

Channel 15

Channel 10

Channel 5 Momster Monday

Channel 12

Channel 15

Raising Arizona Kids Mompreneur

Our Kids Blog

Points of Light

US Swim School Association Newsletter Swimformation

Grandparenting Today Show on Radio WMKV in Cincinnati

World’s Largest Swimming Lesson coverage on June 14:
Mesa’s Arizona Republic

Fox Channel 10

“Prescription for Water Safety” is the latest movement in drowning prevention. With a backing from Florida pediatricians, “Well Baby” visits will now include water safety education. On the child’s nine month visit, their pediatrician will write out a “Doctor’s prescription” for water safety lessons. The parents will also be given the Water Smart Babies handbook which includes tips on home water safety, water safety lesson facilities (by county), CPR classes (by county) and safety device information, such as pool fencing, door and pool alarms. As the child visits the pediatrician in subsequent months the doctor will follow up to make sure the family is getting their home equipped with the layers of protection and the child is participating in water safety lessons.

The brain-child of Kim Burgess, the pilot program was originally launched by the Broward County Task Force, February 2010 in Florida. Along with a position paper written by Mrs. Burgess and Lana Whitehead, the entire program was adopted by the Florida Pediatric Society, the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Drowning Prevention Coalition of Arizona task force is scheduled to pilot their programs in April of 2011; with a program roll out scheduled for August.

Members of the US Swim School Association are helping the Water Smart Babies Prescription Program to gain momentum and launch throughout the entire United States. Karen King (Broward County Task Force), Sue Mackie, Lana Whitehead and Bob Hubbard (Arizona Task Force) and Jim Hazen (New York Task Force) are encouraging all member schools to join with them to form drowning prevention task forces in their areas and adopt the Water Smart Babies Prescription Program. Drowning is the leading cause of accidental death for children ages 1 to 4. If we all work together, we can help curtail needless child drowning in our neighborhoods.

-by Lana Whitehead, from the Summer 2011 newsletter of the U.S. Swim School Association

As temperatures rise, it’s time to think about your summer plans. Here are some winners:

Jump Start Sessions-Thinking about enrolling a sibling or need a boost? Our two week swim sessions (Monday - Thursday) are for survival levels and accelerate your children’s learning.  Jump Starts are available in the evenings, and will start May 16 in the mornings. The cost is just $124, a great value per class.

Summer Swim Team-Build teamwork and goal-setting skills in your child at our fun Summer Swim Team June 6 to July 30. Levels Silver and above are eligible to participate. The cost for Gold/Gold Competitive and above is $90 (plus your regular monthly fee and a $30 facility fee) which includes a weekly skill practice (in addition to your child’s regular weekly class), a weekly team practice, team cap, team photo, and championship party.  Silver level is $20 less but do not get the weekly skill practice.   There is a Parent Orientation Meeting on May 7 which is the registration deadline; after that date, there is a $15 late fee.

Second Class-Add a second class, whether it’s swim, gym, dance, or our new martial arts.  Cross training helps with coordination, strength, endurance, and flexibility. If the second class is a different activity, the cost is 50% off. For the same activity, it’s 10% off. Try a class for free.

Lana Whitehead of Mesa runs SWIMKids USA, a program that teaches kids the basics of safe swimming. She has written four books and the scripts for three videos on drowning prevention and has trained more than 50,000 children to be safer in the water with a method she developed that involves a series of steps children should take in an emergency situation.

This month, she received the 2011 National Drowning Prevention Alliance’s Community Lifesaver Award at the a national convention in Colorado Springs. The award honors individuals or organizations that have advanced the efforts of drowning prevention through education, research, public awareness, legislative changes or engineering advancements.

How did you get started with your business? What inspired it?

I was living in California and teaching high school. When I had a baby I decided to go to the YMCA and teach my baby swimming. The people there saw me and asked if I would develop a program for them. This was 40 years ago, so at that time, it was a pretty big deal that they asked me that.

We decided to move to Arizona because California was so crowded and the Bay Area wasn’t the best place to raise kids.

Tell us about your children.

All of them work with me and for me and also go to school. They are coaches for me. Lance is 39 and an accountant, Brandon is 34 and was in emergency medicine, but now coaches and loves that, and Bryce is 25 and is graduating in psychology this year.

What do you hope that your business brings to people?

We have a unique business that basically saves lives, so that’s our ultimate goal. We have a program that we are heavily involved with called Prescription Swim that will be going national soon. It’s where pediatricians give parents a prescription for babies to go get swimming lessons because it’s so important in Arizona. More importantly I want to make this place a loving and warm environment where employees and people feel safe. We also teach gymnastics and dance. It’s so great getting to teach small children.

Does being located in Arizona help your business?

It was definitely a booming business in California as well because of the very high need for drowning prevention there. And Arizona as well as Florida are good places to have swimming instruction businesses. The gymnastics and dance that we offer would go well anywhere.

What are the biggest challenges with your work?

To be sure that every child who comes to us gets taught in a way that he or she is able to learn the skills and to do them and to be successful in the lessons that we teach because we deal with life and death. Every child is different, and when we train teachers we tell them that. There is not just one way to teach a child. When something doesn’t work we have to move back down the scale and find the missing links that they haven’t gotten and then have them master that and move on. We also have a lot of special needs children and they need to be taught in a different way.

Any changes looming?

We are adding martial arts. We would like to expand but we haven‘t yet. We have land but haven’t expanded because of the economy and don’t know how it will play out. We also have swim teams and we are expanding that into older and older ages and some are eventually going to be trying out for nationals and maybe someday even the Olympics.

You recently won the 2011 National Drowning Prevention Alliance’s Community Lifesaver Award. How do you feel about that?

It was humbling to receive this award from so many dedicated professionals in every field who are dedicating their time, talents and finances to combat the increase in child drownings.

Anything else you would like people to know?

We have three or four babies to be born soon to moms who work here and our moms are having babies all the time. We have a babysitter here so that the moms can come to work and keep their children on site. They also can work for us part time and at their convenience and choose hours that work for them. I really feel it is important that the moms have onsite childcare.