Ten Helpful Tips For Our New Swim Lesson Parents
We thank you for trying our swim lesson program. As a small school that focuses directly on you or your child by offering private, semiprivate and group lessons, our main priority is giving you or your child the best lessons geared towards individual swimming needs.
Some helpful tips to remember when starting out your lessons:
- Set goals with your instructor. The instructor does not know you or your child and it will take a few lessons for them to understand personalities, fears, hesitations and interests. Communicate with them and share any concerns or feedback you have.
- You or your child will not perfect swimming technique or skills in one lesson, or in many cases one full session of lessons. Set small goals that can be accommodated in 4-6 weeks. We highly suggest you continue after 6 weeks to get the best results from your lessons. Do not compare yourself or your child with any other swimmer. Everyone progresses at their own pace and some progress faster than others. Swimmers take years to perfect and practice their technique, endurance and ability.
- Bring familiar objects and routines. If your child enjoys certain toys in the bathtub, or specific routines in the water, explain that to your instructor and they can include that in their lesson routine.
- Be consistent. Come to all of your lessons if you are in a package of lessons, try to schedule all of your lessons within a few weeks time. Consistency is key, and infrequently participating in lessons does not help with muscle memory.
- Allow your child to experience fears, hesitation, overcome obstacles, experience success and also to try things a few times before they accomplish them. Being in the pool with a stranger, in an environment that is intimidating can take a few lessons to adapt and can be challenging. This is all part of the learning process. They experience this in school, and they will experience this in swim lessons as well.
- Support your instructor. They are there for your or your child’s lesson and they want to make it the best experience they can. Sometimes instructors can see things going on with your child, that you may not be aware of. They may suggest not watching lessons, or walking away from the pool deck on occasion to benefit bonding and the progress of instruction.
- Free makeups are not available for our 6 week sessions. We do not offer makeups simply because of the number of families we have taking lessons in our program. We are not being able to offer makeups to all families throughout the 6 week session. If we were to offer that, we would not have the manpower to accommodate this for everyone. In addition, your instructor, pool rental and facility fees are still paid even if you do not come for your lessons. If you do feel you would like to schedule a makeup, we do offer makeups for a nominal fee. For those families who purchase the 4-6 month packages (our most recommended package), we do offer 1-2 makeups as part of the package. Contact us for more details.
- Semiprivate lessons are not level based. The semiprivate lessons are age appropriate groups and may have different levels within the group of children. If you feel the semiprivate lesson is too advanced or not advanced enough for your child, please contact us and we will discuss private lesson rates and options for you.
- Do not jump from swim program to swim program. The best thing you can do for you or your child in swim lessons, is to stick with a program to encourage bonding and progression. By switching programs, you or your child will not adapt to a teaching style and will delay progression.
- Be patient with the staff, both administrative and instructional. They are working with over 200 families each session to provide the best possible lessons and experience and need your patience as they attend to each family.
THANK YOU AGAIN FOR ENROLLING WITH STARFISH AQUATICS!!!!