The ISR Lesson Experience:
ISR Lessons are available to infants and young children 6 months – 6 years old. I do teach older children based on their aquatic history, please inquire. Our safe and effective lessons are customized to your child and taught one-on-one. We do not offer group lessons. Your child’s lesson experience will be unique and the safest possible lesson. The instructor’s attention will be focused on your child only throughout the lesson period.
Lessons are no more than 10 minutes a day, 5 days a week. In order to master these self-rescue skills, the enrollment period is typically 6 weeks or approximately 30 lessons. Once in a while, an extra week of lessons is needed. **Each child is different and could require more or less time to acquire these skills.
Your Certified ISR Instructor will provide instruction to your child that emphasizes developmentally appropriate skills training, assessment of any health considerations, ongoing program evaluations, and parent education.
After the initial lesson experience is complete, ISR recommends that every child participates in 2-3 weeks of refresher lessons every 6 months to a year. This will enable your child to learn how to adjust their swimming and floating skills to their continually growing and developing bodies. If you are in a year-round swimming location, 1-2 lessons per month is recommended.
Please avoid all APPLE/PEACHES/PEARS during training to help your child’s skills come easier. Also no food/drink 2 hours prior to lessons. These foods cause extra gassy bellies for little ones and makes the float position a very uncomfortable position to maintain. To make it easier for them to learn the float, avoiding those foods during training is best. You may have snacks ready to go after lesson if you’d like.
Your Child’s Self-rescue Skills:
Infants (6-15 months old) will learn to hold their breath underwater, roll onto their back and float unassisted and learn to maintain it. Children (1+ year – 6 years old) will learn the following sequence: how to hold their breath underwater; swim with their head down and eyes open; roll onto their back to float, rest, and breathe; and roll back over to resume swimming until they reach the side of the pool and can crawl out or be rescued by an adult.
Please know that kids just walking may not have a strongly propelled swim until they’re a little older. Some children not walking well well at 12-15 months will still need to just learn the float, it will depend on where they are developmentally.
Since statistics show that 83% of all children who drown are fully clothed at the time, during the final week of lessons, while under the watchful eye of an instructor, each of our students have the opportunity to practice their self-rescue skills in their clothes, but will end lessons in one or two days of regular swim attire so as to reinforce that is is not “normal” to swim in regular clothing.