What Comes First: Swim Temp or Swim Skills?

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.