Learning to Love and Respect the Water in Early Childhood: The Many Benefits of a Parent and Me Class

Author Karen Cox teaching a Parent and Me class

Parents often enroll in a Parent and Me class desiring to start their child off with an early appreciation of the water.  Some parents are looking to gain strategies for working with their child in the water, while others know they have never mastered feeling comfortable in the water themselves and specifically don't want to pass their discomfort along to their children.  As a Parent and Me swim coach, I believe all of these goals can be met!  

The Parent and Me classes at UVAC are for children 6 months to 3 years accompanied by a parent or care giver as their primary teacher in the water.  The first half of each class is designed to be welcoming and fun.  Through ball play and songs, children are learning to engage in a group lesson, to share and to learn from others.  Embedded in the songs are body movements that will aid in the child's swimming progress.  The songs provide a developmentally appropriate structure for the children, which in turn helps them to relax and actively participate in the lesson.  This predictable structure helps the child feel secure and successful in the midst of the splashy unknown randomness of the water environment.  Most importantly, the child and parent are learning to have a trusting relationship in the water together.  This bonding is essential for the child's progress.  The child is taking their cues from the parent!  The parent is looking for opportunities to challenge the child, progressing them in their journey of learning to swim.  

During the second half of each class we work on developing a skill set together.  I think of this as a bag of tricks for each parent.  Incidentally, these are the same skill sets I would use while teaching an older child to swim.  The difference is found in the amount of physical support a child needs.  The joy in the Parent and Me class is that we get to start these little ones early!  Learning to back float (essential safety skill), to put one's face in the water, air exchange (take a breath, exhaling in the water), to kick (building muscle memory for proper technique) and to glide from the wall and learning to return to the wall for safety… All these skills go into the parent's bag of tricks.  

The key is to understand each child is on their own continuum.  The job of the parent is to develop their own understanding of each skill and then to read their child in such a way, that through lots of practice, they can encourage and coach their child to take that next challenge.  An example of this would be to start a back float with a child's head resting on your shoulder, then switching the support to their head resting on your hand, then progressing to a hand supporting their back...you get the idea!

Does this happen over night?  No!  But if you provide plenty of positive exposure to swimming, your child will learn to swim!  Keep in mind each parent/child partnership has their own personality and learning style.  Some children are by personality greater risk takers, others are more reserved.  The same holds true for parents.  Start where you feel comfortable and little by little try to push the envelope.  Keep it fun!  Sense your child's tolerance level. Stay engaged and enthusiastic. The beauty of the group lesson is that children do pick up on what other children are trying and then they try too!  Many parent/child couples come to 3,4 or 5 sessions, some even more!  The songs stay the same but the child progresses!  

Join me in the pool!  

Swimmingly! ~ Coach Karen   

A tip from a UVAC Personal Trainer

By Katherine MacPherson BS, ACSM HFS & UVAC Personal Trainer

Many clients of mine including myself find it a real challenge each week to whip out delicious and nutritious breakfasts, lunch, and dinners for ourselves and our families.  Here is a tip that will make your life easier by giving you more time during the week, and a happier stomach.

THE TIP….PLAN OUT AND PREP OUT YOUR MEALS!

Above is my Sunday Prep Out.  I made all my salads, cut up fruit, separated the trail mix, and even made a chili!

 

Every Sunday afternoon will find me at my dining room table doing ONE thing.  Planning out my weeks’ worth of food.  Here is how to do it: For starters, all you need is a little bit of free time and lots of Tupperware.

PLAN OUT:

·         Get two sheets of blank paper.  One for your “shopping list” and the other to “list your recipes and mark where they came from” (example: Turkey Meat Balls; Paleo Cook Book, page 27)

·         Choose 3-5 major dinner meals & add all the ingredients to your shopping list

·         Choose your lunch themes:  add ingredients to your shopping list

Perhaps…

o    veggie salads with a hard boiled egg

o   Turkey slice roll-up

o   Fruit

o   Trail mix

·         At your convenience go to the food store.  When you return its PREP OUT TIME!

PREP OUT:

·         Be ready to donate 1-2 hours of cooking/prepping… (I know that’s a long time, but this will make prep time and cook time that much faster during the week.)

·         Pre-make salads (don’t forget to boil your eggs!)

·         Pre wrap trail mix and other snacks into serving sizes (the easier for you to grab on the go)

·         Prep out veggies for lunch and dinners by cutting them and properly storing from (the easier for you to whip out that awesome dinner!)

·         BAM you’re ready for an easy week! I encourage you try this.  

Developmental Squad: The first stage of swim team.

Developmental Squad:  The first stage of swim team.

By: Signe Linville, Head Age Group Coach and ASCA Level 2

I am writing to tell you a little about what we are doing during practice with the younger squads.  I hope this helps you understand more about what goes on in the pool.

In the Developmental Squad, the children are not only learning about competitive swimming technique, but also about their teammates, the sport, their kinesthetic abilities and swim-specific lingo. Most of all they are learning to feel confident in the pool and proud of the work that they do each day. 

We begin each practice with a team meeting, during which we ask swimmers to say their name and shares their favorite “something”.  Each day we choose a new topic for our "favorites", ranging from our favorite book to our favorite type of apple.  By the way, I was amazed by how many UVAC Developmental kids could name several different types of apples.  This team-building activity is a very important exercise, and I am very proud to say we have encouraged every child, shy or not, to be comfortable standing up tall saying his or her name and favorite "something".   Once we are finished with our meeting, the children head to their lanes.  Each practice is written carefully with a specific goal in mind.  For the benefit of our swimmers, we have divided the Developmental Squad into three different workout groups.  Each child is carefully placed in a group according to his or her technical ability and developmental level.  

During the fall, we started with two weeks of Freestyle and two weeks of Backstroke.  The coaches look to see who has natural body balance and feel for the water.  After the initial four weeks, swimmers who demonstrate some proficiency in the two long-axis strokes then begin to learn the short-axis strokes: Breaststroke and Butterfly.  Each stroke is taught in a progressive manner, allowing swimmers to build new skills on those previously learned.  This is why it might look like we are doing a lot of the same thing.  We give priority to teaching foundational skills and developing excellent stroke technique not to swimming "garbage" yardage (yards for the sake of yards).  We are firm believers that it is very important to have a strong stroke foundation upon which to build fast, happy swimmers.  Our goal is that each child swims each stroke correctly.  This will give them confidence in practice and races and will help lower the rate of injuries; especially as they get older and start to add substantial yardage. 

Swimming is an extremely difficult sport to master.  To optimize the learning environment, we try to minimize distractions. During Developmental practices we turn the radio off to minimize external noise and our group swims at the far side of the pool, away from the leisure pool which is so interesting and WAY too much fun.  Another benefit of practicing on the far side is that parents may now watch their swimmers from the stands. It is common practice in many swim clubs throughout the country to not allow parents to watch practice because Moms and Dads can potentially be a significant visual distraction. We welcome you to enjoy watching your kids move through the water and we ask that you allow them to put all their focus on us during practice.  We have your kids, at most, for 45 minutes, 3 times a week after a long day at school.  We want to use every bit of time with them for learning this wonderful sport.  We are not trying to just create fast swimmers; we are helping to develop outstanding young people with great self-confidence, strong values and ZEST for life.