ISR is the product of over 50 years of ongoing development in the area of aquatic survival instruction for infants and children. ISR’s primary focus is to teach your child to become a productive swimmer, or floater in any depth of water. The goal of ISR is that your child becomes an “aquatic problem solver.” ISR will greatly increase your child’s chance of surviving an aquatic accident, even when fully clothed!

YES! ISR is dedicated to safety and maintaining numerous safety protocols to promote safe lessons. Your child’s health and well-being are our highest priority and are closely monitored on a daily basis. In addition, your child’s medical and developmental history is a mandatory part of the ISR national registration process, all of which is held strictly confidential. All ISR Instructors undergo an intensive and rigorous training that far exceeds any other training program of this kind. Each ISR Instructor is also required to attend a yearly recertification symposium that includes quality control as well as continuing education. Your education in the area of aquatic safety for your entire family is an integral part of your child’s lessons. You will receive access to the “Parent Resource Guide”, written by Dr. Harvey Barnett and JoAnn Barnett, which will inform you of every aspect of swimming for infants and children. With research, you will find that ISR is the safest survival swimming program but also the most effective for teaching infants and young children.

Yes. At ISR, we believe that part of survival for a child who can walk is swimming. Children learn the swim-float-swim sequence so that they can get themselves to safety in case of an emergency. The difference in our program is that they will learn swimming AND survival skills and how to be an aquatic problem solver.

Your instructor will talk to you about maintenance lessons once the 6 to 8 week training is completed. The maintenance lessons will allow the children to maintain their skills and grow their skills. Children will learn to have fun in the water while being safe. Most children will learn how to swim the complete length of the pool, and learn to dive and jump in. The parents will be more involved with this part of the lesson. Children will then move onto stroke and pre-swim team. Every child will have their own unique Maintenance Lessons schedule.

Based on our research, we know that refresher lessons are important because children change so much both cognitively and physically during the first 4-5 years of life. It is important that their water survival skills grow with their bodies. Frequency depends on the child’s age, growth rate, skill level and confidence level. The goal of refresher lessons is to help your child adjust his/ her new body size and weight to his/her existing skill level. Your Instructor will work with your child to help fine-tune his or her aquatic experience to assist with building efficiency, which will result in self-confidence. This is especially important if your child has not been able to practice any appropriate aquatic skills between seasons.

In May of 2010, the AAP changed its policy regarding the age at which children may start swimming lessons, based on research stating that swim lessons may actually provide reduction in drowning risk of children ages 1- to 4-years-old. That study, “Association Between Swimming Lessons and Childhood Drowning” published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, March, 2009, by Brenner et. al. was the first study to probe the relationship between drowning reduction and swimming skills. That study concluded that, “Participation in formal swimming lessons was associated with an 88 reduction in the risk of drowning in the 1- to 4- year-old children…” The AAP encourages parents to consider that starting water-survival skills training at an early age must be individualized, based on the child’s frequency of exposure to water, emotional maturity, physical limitations and health concerns related to swimming pools.

ISR parents are intelligent and enroll their children because they understand their children’s abilities and want to give them every opportunity to learn, and research shows that swimming is best learned early in life. They also feel it is important to teach their children how to help themselves should they find themselves alone in the water.

Like any physical skill, children don’t “forget” the swim skills but will need to adjust to account for their physical growth. In addition, children will explore and may pick up bad habits watching other children or with interference like floating in a bathtub or playing on pool steps. As your child goes through lessons, you will begin to understand, through communication with your Instructor, what activities may interfere with his/ her learned ISR Self-Rescue® skills. Contacting and/or returning to your Instructor in a timely manner is imperative to maintaining effective habits.

Because most of the children who fall in the water do so fully clothed, we want our students to have experience with such a situation. If a child has experienced the sensations of being in the water in clothing prior to an emergency situation, he/ she is less likely to experience panic and be able to focus on the task at hand. If you have ever jumped in the water with clothes on, then you know that there is a significant difference in weight and feel with clothes as opposed to a bathing suit.

The 6 to 8 weeks is an estimate that is based on the average time in which it takes most children to learn these survival skills. Every child is unique and ISR’s Self-Rescue® program is specifically designed based on your child’s individual strengths and needs. It is important to realize that this is an average which means that some children will actually finish more quickly while others will need more practice. ISR is dedicated to safety and, therefore, we want to provide your child with the time and best opportunity to become proficient in his/her survival skills. We will always honor your child’s needs.

If the child were to get water in his mouth and swallow some, the epiglottis, a flap of cartilage which lies behind the tongue in front of the entrance to the larynx, closes by a reflexive action over the tube leading to the lungs and prevents aspiration just as it does if they were drinking water from a cup or a bottle. The typical child’s anatomy is set up so that if the volume and/or speed of air/water entering the throat is more dense than air, then the epiglottis, by default, will send it to the stomach and not to the lungs. The exception to this rule is if a person is unconscious at which point the involuntary reflex of breathing will take over. Every child is regularly monitored throughout lessons to ensure that he/she is not taking in water.

If the child were to get water in his mouth and swallow some, the epiglottis, a flap of cartilage which lies behind the tongue in front of the entrance to the larynx, closes by a reflexive action over the tube leading to the lungs and prevents aspiration just as it does if they were drinking water from a cup or a bottle. The typical child’s anatomy is set up so that if the volume and/or speed of air/water entering the throat is more dense than air, then the epiglottis, by default, will send it to the stomach and not to the lungs. The exception to this rule is if a person is unconscious at which point the involuntary reflex of breathing will take over. Every child is regularly monitored throughout lessons to ensure that he/she is not taking in water.

SAFETY. At ISR, safety will always come before convenience. While it is a fair amount of paperwork, any program that involves the safety and well- being of infants and young children needs to be conscientious and very thorough. The ISR medical team, consisting of an on-staff team of registered nurses, review the information from the registration form and provide feedback to your child’s Instructor so that he/she can provide the safest possible lessons for your child.

First off, no one works well on a full stomach. Your child is going to be working hard in lessons. We want them to be comfortable. In addition, when children are first learning to hold their breath, they often swallow air. If you get a lot of air in your stomach it will often come out as a burp. If there is food in there as well, the air can get under that food and bring them up together. That isn’t fun for any of us, especially the baby. Once again, we want to set the child up for success. In this case, we want them to be comfortable so they can focus on the task at hand.

Yes. Consider that children learn to sit, crawl and walk before they learn to speak. Because we teach through sensori-motor learning, verbal skills are not required for a child to acquire ISR Self-Rescue® skills. We are able to communicate with our students through touch and positive reinforcement while striving to set our students up for success every step of the way.

Breath holding skills are taught in the first lesson. We shape breath control using highly effective positive reinforcement techniques. We continue to reinforce these breath-holding techniques throughout every lesson.

A baby does not need to perceive danger or be afraid to respond appropriately to being underwater. If a baby has learned to roll over and float when he needs air, he doesn’t need to perceive danger in order to respond in this manner. He needs skill, practice and confidence to calmly deal with the situation.

Children often fuss during the first few lessons because they are in a new environment and around new people. As your child becomes more confident in his/her ability in the water, the fussing will decrease. It is not unlike the first time you tried a new exercise class, or were asked to perform a task at work that you’d never done before: the first time you try a new task it is always challenging, until you get the hang of it. It is the same for your young child. Your child is learning to perform a skill that he/she’s never done before. As the child’s skills increase in the pool, the fussing will decrease.

There is an important difference between being fearful, and being apprehensive because you are not yet skilled in a new environment. ISR is not like traditional swim lessons; it is a drowning prevention program that teaches survival swimming. Sometimes as a parent, you make choices for your child’s safety, like sitting in a car seat, because you know they are important. The same can be said for ISR. Once competent in their skills, many children cannot be dragged away from the pool. They are having entirely too much FUN.

Flotation devices give children a false sense of security and hold them in postures that are not compatible with swimming skills. If a child learns that he can jump in the water and go into a vertical posture and he will be able to breathe, he is getting the wrong idea about that environment. Flotation devices are for children who cannot swim. Children, who cannot swim, should not be allowed to learn that it is safe to play in the water while relying on a crutch. Life jackets must be worn in a boat or around the water when there is the potential for a submersion as a result of an accident i.e. a boat collision or capsize; they are not a substitute for the ability to swim or for adult supervision.

In addition to educating infants and young children, ISR also teaches parents that there is “no substitute for adult supervision” and “No child is drown proof.” If a child needs his/her ISR Self-Rescue® skills, it means what should be several layers of defense have failed. The first goal is that the child is never able to access the water alone. ISR lessons are the last line of protection such that, should all else fail, your child has a chance at helping him/herself by using the survival skills they were taught.