Contrary to what most adults believe, children welcome the thought of swimming.  This is what I usually notice whenever I chance upon parents teaching their toddlers how to swim in swimming pools of resorts I visit during summertime. After all, isn’t it the most natural thing in the world?  When we were just fetuses, we were already exposed to the basics of swimming; we floated 24/7 inside that tiny little pool within our mother’s womb – her amniotic sac.   Training your child as appropriately early as possible gives your child a bigger chance of overcoming his/her fear of water.  The older and, at the same time, the smarter they get, the more they become fearful of it.  Once they learn about the dangers of swimming, it seems almost impossible to unlearn it.  Take it from me — I’m still scared of swimming in a pool more than four feet deep and I studied swimming when I was ten years old!

Infant Swimming Resource (www.infantswim.com) and Safe Start USA (www.safestartUSA.org), the safest and most trusted providers of Self-Rescue™ swimming lessons for babies and toddlers from six months to six years old, celebrated their 25th anniversary in the business last April 23, 2010.  It proudly announced that it has taught more than 50,000 babies and children survival swimming skills over the last 25 years. Aside from their drowning prevention impact, Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) and Safe Start now have 50 certified Instructors in the Orlando area.

“As a private practice pediatrician, I have researched all available drowning prevention programs in an effort to make informed recommendations to not only protect my patients, but my own children as well,” explains Dr. David Carr of Pediatrics Plus in Orlando. “All six of my children have completed the ISR program. I recommend ISR to every parent beginning at their child’s six-month wellness checkup and continuing at every well child visit thereafter. While nothing can replace parental supervision for accident prevention, survival swimming is an extra layer of protection against childhood drowning.”

It is worth noting that drowning ranks as the leading cause of accidental death for children under the age of four in Florida, based on statistics provided by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The great thing when you enroll your children at ISR is that it is not just any other swimming lesson.  With ISR’s Self-Rescue training, your kids are taught how to survive if they were to end up in the water by themselves.  Drowning prevention and water safety for families are the focus of this programme.

“As part of ISR’s 2010 Not One More Child Drowns campaign we want parents to implement a Drowning Prevention Plan in their home that includes Constant-Eyes-On (CEO) Supervision, Pool Fences, Alarms, Self-Locking Gates, Self-Rescue skills and CPR,” says Harvey Barnett, Ph.D., founder of ISR.

To know more about this exciting and life-saving program, or to find an instructor in your area, visit www.infantswim.com or www.safestartusa.org.

About Infant Swimming Resource
Founded in 1966, Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) is nationally recognized as the safest provider of Self-RescueTM swimming lessons for children six months to six years of age. With a primary focus on baby swimming safety, and as the nation’s only behaviorally-based instruction program, ISR designed its program for parents who are dedicated to their child’s safety, education and developmental needs. Our emphasis on ensuring that not one more child drowns is founded on Dr. Harvey Barnett’s Self-Rescue training program, proven to help young children survive in a drowning scenario. ISR’s worldwide network of highly qualified, certified Instructors has successfully trained more than 200,000 babies and toddlers and delivered more than seven million lessons with a 100 percent safety and survival rate, with zero injuries and 789 documented cases of a child’s Self-Rescue using ISR techniques. For more information on ISR, water and swim safety or to find an instructor in your area, please visit www.infantswim.com.

About Safe Start USA
Safe Start USA was created through the collaborative effort of the Dr. P. Phillips Charities, Infant Swimming Resource (ISR), and the Central Florida YMCA. Through a generous grant from the Dr. P. Phillips Charities, Safe Start USA, has been made available at selected YMCA Family Centers in the Central Florida area. The Dr. P. Phillips Charities provided the funding to implement Safe Start, certify all instructors with ISR’s Self-Rescue technique, and place Certified ISR Master Instructors in YMCA centers. The YMCA provided the facilities for lessons and the organizational structure to support the Safe Start program; Infant Swimming Resource provided the core teaching methods as well as the training and supervision of instructors; and the provided staff members to undergo ISR instruction and facilities in which to hold the Safe Start classes.

Media Contact:
Melody Callaway
Infant Swimming Resource
720-939-0476
m(dot)callaway(at)infantswim(dot)com

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Related articles:

• Register your kid for free swimming lessons this Saturday (timeoutny.com)
• Baby swimmers are a booming business (telegraph.co.uk)
• Pool Safety for Kids (life.familyeducation.com)
• Sink or Swim (vukicevic.blogspot.com)

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