Infant Swim Resource Lessons
with Michele Doss, Certified Instructor in Woodstock, GA
Welcome to Allatoona ISR Swim School!
PROVIDING ISR’S SELF-RESCUE SWIMMING LESSONS FOR FAMILIES WITH
CHILDREN 6 MONTHS TO 6 YEARS OLD IN THE TOWNE LAKE AREA OF WOODSTOCK.
Water is an unforgiving environment. Drowning is the number one cause of accidental death for children under the age of 4 in the United States. Infant Swimming Resource, with over 50 years of research and development in drowning prevention and aquatic survival instruction, is striving to change this statistic.
Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) can teach your little one to become an aquatic problem solver and an effective swimmer or floater in any depth of water. Consider that most infants and toddlers love the water, and the situation begs the question - would your child know what to do if they found themselves in the water alone?
Empower your child by enrolling them in ISR’s Self-Rescue program.
How is ISR Different?
For more than 50 years, Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) has been teaching children critical Self-Rescue skills -- giving children the competence and confidence to safely enjoy the water. ISR’s technique teaches babies from 6 months to 6 years of age how to save themselves if they were to end up in the water alone.
What are Self-Rescue Lessons?
Going beyond traditional swim instruction, ISR teaches children how to survive in the water. Depending on your child’s age, your child will learn different levels of Self-Rescue skills, including a roll-back-to-float and/or a swim-float swim.
Safety First
At ISR, your child’s safety is our first priority. Each lesson is uniquely tailored to your child’s needs based on comprehensive assessment and continual monitoring of your child’s health and skill attainment. Because every child learns at their own pace, your child will be gently guided through each skill level.
ISR has safely delivered over 8,000,000 effective lessons teaching water Self-Rescue skills to more than 300,000 infants and toddlers and has educated parents and medical experts nationwide on water safety techniques and proven instruction methods. To date, ISR has 800 documented cases of children using ISR techniques to save themselves from drowning.
Parent Education
Your child is not the only one who will learn during lessons. Infant Swimming Resource’s program includes comprehensive parent education on aquatic safety and drowning prevention. For more information on keeping your family safe in and around the water read tips on ISR’s Family Aquatic Safety List.
History
The idea behind Infant Swimming Resource was born in 1966 when its founder, Harvey Barnett, Ph.D, was just 18 years old. As an active lifeguard, Barnett witnessed the tragic aftermath when a neighbor's child drowned. At that moment, he vowed to do everything possible to ensure not one more child drowns.
Barnett began teaching young children to swim and observed how they responded to certain types of communication, instruction, and different techniques — even with non-verbal infants. This was the beginning research phase for what is now Infant Swimming Resource’s comprehensive infant swimming education and Self-Rescue program.
What Will Your Child Learn?
What your child will learn, and the way he or she will learn it, is what makes ISR’s Self‐Rescue survival swimming program so different from traditional swimming lessons. Always putting safety first, ISR emphasizes competence, which leads to confidence, and provides the foundation for a lifetime of enjoyment in and around the water.
ISR lessons are designed for any child over 6 months of age. This is not a traditional swim class where they will be playing in the pool with other kids like a "Mommy and Me" or "Water Babies" class; this is a behaviorally-based swim program that teaches survival swimming and Self-Rescue skills. This is a course designed to teach your child and their body how to respond and rescue themselves in a potential aquatic emergency situation. Parents do not get into the pool until the last week of lessons.
The ISR course takes approximately 6 weeks and is scheduled 5 days per week, Monday through Friday, for approximately 10 minutes each day. Children may begin lessons at 6-months of age as long as they can sit unassisted, until 6-years of age. Lessons are always taught at your child’s emotional and physical pace with safety as the top priority. Since accidents don’t typically happen when a child is dressed in a bathing suit, completely skilled students will practice their skills fully clothed. What your child will learn depends on his or her age and developmental readiness, but in all cases, at minimum, your child will learn to roll onto his or her back to float, rest, and breathe, and to maintain this position until help arrives.
Students are scheduled according to the individual needs of the parent and student and contingent upon time slots becoming available as other students finish their course. Early registration is highly recommended to better accommodate the time and dates you desire.
ISR is an extraordinary program and we are constantly striving to expand in order to eradicate the child drowning epidemic facing our children.