From the article: Swim Lesson Teaching Time and Space Issues
A swim teacher and swim coach in England, Shev Gul, is trying to get people to realize, respect, and formally make the teaching of swim lessons a health and safety issue that needs to be done in a secure, uninterrupted environment. What this means in the long run is that people should be kept a certain distance away from the swim lesson teaching area. In other words, keep parents and others back from the side of the pool; they should wait and watch from a distance. What Should Be Done?
what should be done?
- As a martial arts teacher, I face this problem daily. Parents will instruct or discipline the kids while I'm attempting to give instruction; this can result in distractions and injury. As a parent, I understand wanting to make sure my child is ok and not causing problems, and as a swim student I resent the interruption of instruction that I am paying for. I would like to see the parents behind a glass wall, or at least in bleachers or outside of the safety fence.
- —whitecrane123
We involve the parents
- At our Somax Aadvanced Swim Camps, we insist that a parent attend to learn our system so that they can videotape their kids underwater stroke, analyze it and supervise our drills so they can follow up after camp. The parents are on deck with us every minute their kids are in the pool. In fact, we often have the parents get in the pool to help their kids learn how to do a drill correctly. Parents and kids find they really like working together this way, both at our camp and later at home. That's why our age-group swimmers have cut their times 3-18% while taking fewer strokes. We also encourage questions from the parents and kids during the camp. We feel the more the swimmers and parents know about our system, the better the kids will swim. Our record bears that out. Many of our swimmers have gone on to win state and national championships. Parents and kids, with their busy schedules, spend less and less time together. This is one more reason we like to see them work together.
- —Guest Bob Prichard
