august 15, 2024

Infant swimming?

ISR (https://infantswim.com/) and Powers Aquatics (https://powersaquatics.com/) offer swimming lessons to infants, 1-, and 2-year-olds.

I have a generally negative impression of ISR: I inquired about learning what they do, and it turns out they are insular to the extreme. Specifically, to become an ISR instructor, one for practical purposes should first be a client. In other words, there is this incestuous hiring whereby the bulk of the staff are people who had successful experiences paying for their own children to get the ISR training. According to their website, the prototype instructor is a mom who did ISR with her baby and decided to become an ISR instructor afterward. You don’t need a degree in statistics to see that there is something fishy about that. Parents who had negative experiences with ISR would not, of course, want to themselves become instructors. So there is this cultish-ness where one has to be a true believer to become an instructor. I left my interaction with ISR sure that whatever “research” they rely on is subject to extreme selection and/or confirmation bias.

On the other hand, for Powers Aquatics, I knew Kristen briefly years ago, and I had a very positive impression of her. Knowing her even briefly, I suspect she has thought things through and has good reasons for what she is doing. I once inquired about learning about her program but got no traction. The swimming business is strange since I don’t believe anyone can or does patent their teaching methods. Thus, if she shared her methods with me, I could adopt those methods, call them my own methods, and compete with her for clients. Maybe that is why she didn’t want to share her method with me.

However, I do have some independent information about these baby-to-two swim programs, and it has become concerning enough for me to post this. I am sending it to Kristen and ISR to see if they want to respond. If they do, I will post it here.

A troubling trend

Over the past year, I've had half a dozen clients share a similar troubling story. Their children, who had graduated from Powers/ISR a year earlier, seemed to have regressed in their swimming skills and developed a fear of swimming. For instance, one parent lamented, 'We have a pool at our house, and we invested so much in Powers/ISR, but now our child refuses to even go near the pool and cries when we try to get them to swim.'

Having seen this enough, I consulted with a nationally-known expert, Jeffrey Napolski (see https://swimmingideas.com) He said that none of the national programs (YMCA, Red Cross, etc.) support the ISR approach. Yes, you can teach an infant or two-year-old to swim, but, for at least a significant portion of students, it is a traumatizing experience. It is as it were based on trauma. Trauma is the ISR method. (In my mind, I think of teaching an infant to swim as similar to the way the circus taught animals to perform). From Jeffrey’s perspective, once the child has finished the program, they have a long history of negative associations with swimming, and the task at that point is to replace the traumatic memories with new, positive associations and memories. In other words, the best way to cure this problem is for the parent to get in the pool with the child—where the environment is specifically structured so that the child feels safe and held. The sole task is for the parent and child to have fun together so the child can replace the negative with new, happy memories.

My understanding is that the initial training—i.e., the training that later needs to be reversed—is costly and time consuming. Apparently (ISR and Powers can correct me if I am wrong), the parent and child get this training up to five days per week. (This fact—that children must be trained so often and at such expense—itself is strong evidence that swimming babies is not natural, as that Nirvana album cover might suggest).

Parents want the best for their kids, and they research the options available to them. Why, then, do parents do this? Why do they spend the time and money for this training. A cynic might say that it is for those look-my-baby-can-swim videos. Less cynically, parents are feeling powerless and want to do something, something that can make them feel they are putting their child at a competitive advantage in the world. The true benefit of baby-swimming may be the feeling it gives the parents: the sense that they know they are doing something expensive and time-consuming for the benefit of their children.

Given their cultish hiring, I would be suspicious of any ISR-sponsored “research. " (Although ISR: please provide me any such research. I would love to evaluate it for you, and I will post both the research and my evaluation!).

From my anecdotal experience, I have not found that the baby swimmers are more fluent or natural in the water than those who learn at age 4.

The gung-ho parent

When I tell parents this, the common response—at least from the dads—is, “But It’s about SAFETY! I want my child to be safe!”

The word “safety” supposedly puts an end to all discussion. Once one person says “Safety,” the other person has to concede—or else tacitly acknowledge to being opposed to the safety of babies. When the dad slings “safety,” I try to give him the websites for Powers and ISR and wish him good luck.

Jeffrey said the safety claim can carry the day, but it is only in a particular situation. If you had a pool in your house, say, or if, for whatever reason, your child spent much of the day around the edge of a pool, then the safety concerns might justify the trauma to the child. In other words, Jeff thinks that even when it is about safety, we can look at costs and benefits. The ISR training would give you some added time to rescue the child. But how much added time? It appears that it would only give you a few added minutes. During those few minutes, the child could roll over on their back and support themselves. It is within the realm of possibilities that a few minutes could mean the difference between life and death.

But how many parents are in such a situation?

Parents have a limited amount of time and money. There are many ways they can invest that time and money, many ways to contribute to their child’s safety and future flourishing. It’s far from clear that teaching a baby-to-two to swim is the best way to parent well.

If a particular family wants to spend time and money, far be it for me to judge. De gustibus non est disputandum. I am just pointing out this trend I have found. As for me, I will continue doing what the Red Cross, the YMCA, and SwimmingIdeas.com suggest: a supportive, incremental approach where the child is traumatized as little as possible. Then truly learning to swim at about age 4.

Post script

August 29, 2024

There is a lot of anger and fear around ISR and Powers, and a lot of money being made. There seems to be little data. None of the national endorsed programs endorse their methods but, instead, recommend having fun with your child in the water, building up positive memories and associations. After posting the above comment two weeks ago, I have been notified about two other sites for your consideration:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/comments/16cm5cn/longterm_trauma_from_isr_swim_lessons/

https://bethrowles.com/swim-lessons-paying-for-trauma/

Our child graduates from ISR or Powers, we see them roll over after being tossed in, and we assume that is a skill that will stay with them forever. We are surprised and frustrated when the child seems to lose this "skill," and even balks at participation. What seems clear is that the behavior trained-in at ISR and Powers is qualitatively different than, say, learning to ride a bicycle. Your child may have been able to perform the conditioned movements on their graduation day, but they will lose that “skill” quickly if you don’t continue the conditioning day after day, week after week, month after month.

culture of positivity

These days, it seems we are all pressured to be positive. I see the winners among us; they radiate acceptance and equanimity. So why am I being negative here, spreading negative energy?

I am trying to reach the person who is considering whether to enroll their child in ISR or Powers. I think this negativity is useful for them. It is useful to hear cons about options.

So, who might my negative energy hurt? Kristen? The ISR bigwigs? Like politicians, their response is probably, “just spell my name correctly.” (spell my website correctly)

That leaves parents who have already been through a course of infant swimming and who flinch at the suggestion that there was an underlying error in their efforts-so-noble. To these parents, I say, “All parents make bone-headed decisions. It’s part of being a parent. You will have plenty of chances to make up for your parenting shortfalls. Years and years and years of opportunities. For reparations. And for more bone-headedness.”