squidkid.

I’ve been waiting for a really good post to pop in my head … some singular idea to dissect and get down to the roots of … until I realized today that it just isn’t going to happen. Simply because there are too many points to make right now about swimming.

So with school almost out and the sun in full force (okay not today if your live in northern California), here’s your Squidkid Starter Kit for summer swim lessons! (This includes a great round-up of previous entries and links found here!)

• Pool temp is king. More important than anything else, I wager. Read why and how it affects your kid’s progress.
• Getting the baby ready. Learn about the difference between splashing about and actually teaching an infant to roll over on their back in the water.
• Do not stress if you didn’t get all the lessons you wanted. Swimming can be a forgotten activity in the “off” season. There are many reasons why fall is a great time to learn swimming and August the worst.
• Make ‘um more safe right now. We teach kids what drowning means, but I don’t think we look hard enough at the preventative behaviors.
• Don’t like your teacher? Get to know the person better. How-to open up the line of communication so you feel more comfortable telling them what to do here.
• Cutting swim costs. Frugal is the new black. I have a philosophy with swim skills that if you can get away with not doing it (ie. not paying for it), don’t do it — I teach you how to cut corners without loosing quality.
• Mom, treat yourself to some freestyle. If you are curious how to do it, here is a mini-lesson. It’s all about the breathing. I used to suck too.
• Plan of attack if they turn out to be Criers. How to figure out why your kid hates swim lessons — and what to do.

This is not one of those irritating who-crossed-the-road-first-the-chicken-or-the-hamburger type of riddles. Pool temperature is far more important than developing swim skills. Because how are you going to get a kid in the pool if the weather or water is too cold for comfort?

I’ve started home lessons early the summer and I might have made a mistake doing so. Not only was the weather in the dumper this first week in May, but pool temperatures weren’t on target either.

When choosing between whether or not to get into a cold outdoor pool — and I call anything under 80-degrees a cold pool — I recommended canceling the swim lesson. That’s right. Go ahead and call me or your personal swim instructor and say the pool heater is on the fritz or your kids are on swimming strike. Be proactive.

Of course we instructors need the money and your kids need the lessons. But swimming needs to be a comfortable experience for progress to occur. The best way your make a kid hate swimming is to make them stay in a pool with an uncomfortable pool temperature.

I give myself credit: I’ve got the magic to make kids listen to me. And don’t worry about my own issues; I have neoprene (wetsuit) clothing and I’m also a crafty little critter when it comes to earning a buck  — the worry is not on me. What you need to keep in mind is in all my years of teaching, I have not yet learned how to talk a kid out of being cold. It just doesn’t happen.

Here’s how you know the swimming temp won’t work for a lesson:

1. You won’t get into the pool.
2. If you do get into the pool, you cannot stay there for 1/2 hour (let alone fifteen minutes).
3. Your kid says it’s too cold and wants out.
   
4. It’s raining.
5. The pool temp is under 80-degrees.

Okay — I know I’m being flippant. But remember, I’m the one who said I’d schedule lessons with you in May. So I’m just as guilty as being an uncurable optimist. Hence the realist checklist.

An excellent personal trainer I know, Robert Werner, just forwarded me his Youth Fitness Power Point presentation. I have listened to Robert speak before on physical fitness (he’s also an incredible cultural dancer and can teach you how to get your groove on with Brazilian, African and Caribbean rhythms).

Did you know the latest statistics on childhood obesity show that 32% of U.S. kids are either obese or overweight? Kids between 10-13 years of age who are currently obese have a 70%  likelihood of becoming obese adults. (If you want to check out the facts, visit Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here).

Robert makes the case that since there isn’t much we can do about genes, we — parents and kids — can focus on controlling eating and activity.

Swimming is a suggested activity, of course. What’s great about water is that water provides a low-impact environment. This is helps eliminate hard stress on the body for overweight or obese bodies.

For kids to get the recommended 1-hour of physical activity a day, it has to be fun — here are 10 Ways to Make Youth Fitness Fun (in the Water, of course)!

1. Have a pool party. That’s hours of swimming activity your kids and their friends will partake in.
2. Use StickK.com to come up with kooky goals. There’s a lady who swore she’d eat a can of dog food if she didn’t lose 20-lbs by such-and-such date. Your kids can post and link to their My Space page.
3. Go swimming together. A friend’s pool, dropping in at the Y — anything to show them you like swimming too. Do the doggy paddle while you ask your kid about their day.
4. Retrieve $10 of change. Whatever your kid can grab in quarters at the bottom of the pool in 1-minute, it’s theirs (to spend on physical fitness stuff).
5. Treading-while-talking challenge. Kid must swim with their head up for 10 whole minutes and answer all of your questions: Your favorite color? Show? Movie? Shoes? Vacation?) I bet you’ll learn a lot and they’ll love the attention.
6. Cool flippers or fins. Everyone — and I mean everyone — loves fins. I have yet to met a kid who doesn’t go nuts over them.
7. Hot tub rewards. Many public or community centers have them. Sometimes it’s worth to go swimming just to soak after.
8. Weekly swim dates. Make it regular with a friend they enjoy being with and who swims on about the same level.
9. Outdoor iPod speakers. Get a game of musical chairs — or certain spots in on the pool side — going. I just bought an outside boombox for an iPod for $40.
10. Good ‘ol Marco-Polo.Your heard the one about the police officer finding a hidden robber in a warehouse when he called out ‘Marco’ and the thief answered ‘Polo’ out of instinct, right?

Common knowledge, right? But it is easier said than done. If you see your little one in danger, you’re going to do whatever it is you have to do to make them safe again. Especially when it comes to pools or bodies of water. Time is not on your side in these situations.

Steering far from extreme water dangers — meaning near-drowning incidents — let’s used distressed swimmers in our example.  A distressed swimmer is a swimmer actively struggling. Signs of a distressed swimmer are wide eyes, submerged mouth, and splashing quietly. They do not call for help or make loud noises. (For further clarification, technically a near-drowning victim means at some point, the person stopped breathing and was administered CPR).

Distressed swimmers — caught and assisted before unconsciousness — usually suffer the aftermath of a water trauma. This is different from a water fear, which is  imagined incidents happening. With water trauma, something did go down.

We all have our water trauma stories. All of us. We all remember a time when mom wasn’t looking and so-and-so jumped in the pool; when a neighbor grabbed and help us under; when we hit our head on the diving board.

So we want to try and eliminate or at least control our kids’ water trauma stories. How we react can create, counter and redirect a memory. Advice to handle a Swimming Emergency calmly:

• Be swift and silent. Do what you need to do, but don’t make a big, dramatic show of it, vocally or physically.
• Try to assist the distressed swimmer from the side of the pool. Reach, throw, but don’t go unless you have to. This is how lifeguards do it. You are teaching responsibility for actions.
• Turn it into a game. This is good for the very young and toddlers — if you are forced to jump in and rescue, immediately start swimming around with the child. You’ve got to channel the nervous energy into something else to avoid an emotional impact.
• Stop talking about it. Every time you bring it up, it enforces the experience and swimming itself as wrong and bad and scary. That’s too much for any kid to handle. Get an experienced instructor who deals with this issue and let them properly advise you both how to work through it.
• Use the right terminology. Parents work on teaching the concept of drowning, but discuss the cause — basically, not following or understanding water safety rules and ability.

I see a lot of parents complaing about the pool rules at the community center I teach at — there are so many pool rules because there are so many ways for your kid’s safety to be jeopardized in a pool. The best defense to any unfavorable swimming emergency is a good offense. Have pool rules, an emergency plan, a pool fence. Enforce and practice.

Sometimes I wish I had a waterproof pen and paper in the pool because the things kids say in the pool are truly priceless. When I can remember these antidotes and repeat them later, they always make my listeners smile.

I found a funny essay today on a blog called The Minivan Monologues about an 8-year kid who was swearing in his swim lesson, and how a fellow student responded to his behavior.

I’ve got to say my most memorable swim story was about a very frustrated and stubborn  4-year old little girl who refused to participate in any of the swim lesson activities I asked her to do. She did not enjoy me repeatedly asking her to put her face in the water and would scowl at me in response.

Finally, after about the third lesson and a hundred tries to get her to put her face in, I changed tactics and posed this question to her: “You want to grow up and be a swimmer, don’t you?”

She glared at me angryly and replied, “No! I want to grow up and be a VETERINARIAN!”

This is a post I wrote last May, but with all the activity I’ve been seeing lately with families inquiring about summer swim lessons, I want to re-post it now.

Are you new to the world of obtaining swim lessons for your family? And even though it is early May February, are you ready to pull your hair out in confusion and frustration? Securing swim lessons in the summer is a very competitive business. Based on the feedback I get, which comes from hundreds of moms and dads and nannies and grandparents, they can tell you it can be quite a process, from finding (and sticking with) the right swim instructor to figuring out exactly when your child really is water safe.

Never fear, instruction is here! I’ve written about entires perfect for families new to the swim lesson process — I will save you tons of time (and money) with The Best Entires About Learning the Ropes of Swim Lessons:

• Could you be jumping the gun, or is your child to young to start swim lessons? You’ll need to learn about the pro’s & con’s of starting your child early in Part One. Be sure to follow up with Part Two.
• Don’t panic if they are age 5 and cannot swim! This is a great age to learn to swim and the most cost-efficient. Visit this post to find out how you can get your 5 year-old to start swimming in one lesson.
• How to prepare a fearful child with swimming lessons. Here is what you should know to break the fear. Also, make sure you know the difference between water fears and water trauma.
• Stop tearing your hair out and figure out how to beat the swim crowd. Know how the instructor and swim program cycle works. And don’t wait until summer — the “off-season” is a great time to take lessons, and my very first post tells you for many reasons.
• Do-it-yourself ideas. Here is a review of a swim book I recommend for teaching babies, as well as Level Cards — you’ll be able to assess where your child is at using Red Cross Safety Standards. Man, I should charge for these cards!