Hello AAAP Members,
With so much disruption, we are keen to get our youth back in the water learning and growing their water proficiency and this lifelong skill. However, I am finding it challenging to help our parents navigate the waters in this ever-changing situation.
For those of you who have already taken the plunge and are offering swim lessons with caregivers under the current restrictions, I am wondering if you can share your learnings? How did you educate the parents? What are some creative solutions to getting kids involved/moving while the caregiver's head and mask stays dry?
We ran swim lessons successfully in the fall for all levels, just looking for learnings and ideas as we look to step back into swim lessons with caregivers (this time with masks).
Thank you!
Hi Mandy! We are running lessons down in Lethbridge with Recreation Excellence. We currently offer private lessons for Sea Otter level and up as well as small group lessons for Starfish, Duck, and Sea Turtle (4 x parent/baby). Sea Otter to Swim Kids 4 is parent assisted while Swim Kids 5 to 10 is un-parented. Instructors are masked in the water for the entire lesson, we are not allowing Instructors to demo due to AHS guidelines advising Instructors to be masked the whole time. Parents are also masked however they can remove their mask to demo if needed. We have chairs next to the pool for them to place their masks on to ensure they stay dry. Most of our parents were accepting of the new rules and understood it was government mandated. We had a couple parents that were not okay with it and it was not their time to do lessons. They decided to watch for the restrictions to ease before coming back to lessons. We encourage to bring multiple masks with them to change out in the event of their mask getting wet. It is hard to avoid it completely, but we do our best! Instructors must focus their lessons on verbal explanations and describe in detail how the parents need to help them, in some situations they also use hand gestures (i.e., pointing to your mask when asking for bubbles, showing a front glide standing straight up, etc.). Its been tough to get things moving with the restrictions but it’s amazing having kids in the water swimming again! Hope this helps and good luck!
Samantha