More Information

Groups are made up of children of similar ages and abilities. You provide the group. A group lesson lasts half an hour and each child will be doing basically the same things. There are five lessons per session and the session cost is $85. If you feel that you have a group of children that do not meet the requirement for same age and ability you can schedule the students to have consecutive lessons at the price of $110 per child, per session (the private lesson price). For weekday lessons there is an additional $15 per swimmer per session.
 
What will your child learn? First and foremost they will learn safety: I am not originally interested in stroke development. Once the child can swim back to the wall after jumping in, climb out of the pool, and float on their back, then and only then will we begin stroke development. EVERY CHILD DEVELOPS AT DIFFERENT TIMES. I cannot stress that enough. You may have one child that is swimming freestyle at age 4, while a 10 year old cannot jump in and return to the wall. I do not judge a child’s ability on their age alone. I do know about child development and what children can do at certain ages.
 
Why do I ask for so much information about your swimmer? I need to know as much about them as I possibly can so that I know what they should be able to do. For example: A child who is three could be a “young three” or an “old three”. At that age they grow, learn, and develop so much in a year that a young three year old is very unlikely to be able to do the same activities as an old three year old. Knowing their birth date helps me to know this about them. I need to know about medical restrictions because if your child has tubes in their ears, asthma, or other medical restrictions they cannot do certain things that they might do without the restriction. Knowing the swimmer’s ability going into lessons allows me to build my lessons around the child. I will be doing an evaluation in my head the first time I work with your swimmer. From then on, every time I work with them I know what they could do before they started swim lessons and what they can do now. Having an idea before I meet the swimmer for the first time helps me evaluate their progress.
 
If your child has tubes in their ears, please talk to their doctor to find out if they are able to participate in swim lessons. The information that I currently have is that children may swim in chlorinated pools, but not dive deep into the water. If your information differs or your child’s doctor does not want them to swim, please refrain from signing them up.
 
My foremost goal is safety. That is what I will work on whether a child can swim laps in a big pool or wears floaties every time they enter the water. My goal is to get every child that I work with to be out of floaties and be safe getting in and out of the water as well as being in the water comfortably. Your child must be able to get out of the pool if they fall in, with or without all of their clothes on. If this is a concern for you, I will take one lesson and have the child learn how to disrobe and get out if they fall in with their clothing on. After I am sure that your child is safe in the water and can do a number of things on their own, only then will we begin to work on stroke development. There are many steps before a child begins competitive strokes that are built on basic techniques that are the result of their own type of swimming.
 
Floaties have their place and time. Once your child starts swim lessons with me, please stop using them. They are very detrimental to your child’s progress. Every time that you put a child in floaties it undoes what the instructor has accomplished in lessons. Floaties upright the child whereas what we want is for the child to be much more horizontal. If their feet are under them then they make no progress forward in the water, if their feet are behind them then they can move forward in the water. 
 
I will be wearing a plain one piece swim suit with normal straps. It is unsafe for me to wear a t-shirt over my swim suit because if the swimmer pulls on my shirt, it could choke me and pull me underwater, along with the swimmer. The swimmer’s attire is not important as long as they can move comfortably in the water.

For every family that you refer to me for swim lessons, that actually sign up for lessons with me, you receive a $10 credit towards your next session.

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