There has been a lot of controversy when it comes to ISR. Should my child take ISR classes? Does it work? Do they become traumatized?
In this post I am going to share the truth and reality about ISR. How it actually works, what the child actually learns, my experience with it, and whether or not babies should learn this.
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What Is ISR?
ISR stands for Infant Self Rescue. Commonly known as survival swimming. The theory and goal behind these classes is after 6 short weeks your child can fall in the pool, fully clothed, and perform a "self-rescue". A "self-rescue" is where the child rolls over and floats until help arrives. This also the way they "graduate" from the classes.
Sounds great right? Unfortunately, the reality is that they can only perform the self-rescue during the classes and immediately after the classes have ended. See, they do not actually learn in these classes. Rather, they are trained that when they feel water on their face they need to immediately roll over to be able to breathe.
So why is this a problem? Two reasons. The first one being that since they are trained to roll over rather than taught, it is not a skill that sticks with them after the classes have ended. It is merely a reactionary response to the stimulus of water touching their face. Meaning, after some time has passed (can be in as little as a month), they can no longer perform this so sought after "self-rescue."
The second problem that this causes is that it becomes very difficult to teach the child to actually swim. The ISR classes train the child to not have their face in the water, and, in fact, instill a HUGE aversion to it. My article on "Why Kids Should Learn to Swim Without Goggles," does a great job of outlining why this is a problem.
I have taught hundreds of kids to swim. When parents tell me that they have had ISR classes, it has always been a nightmare to get that child to swim. They cry and scream the entire class, because the ISR classes have them traumatized.
Don't get me wrong, I am no stranger to tears in lessons, and tears should definitely not be a reason that a child does not learn to swim! However, the amount of crying, screaming and downright terror that these children display is not normal or OK.
In a normal swimming lesson, the tears stop after a child learns to swim– they aren't afraid anymore. However, with students that have done survival swimming, the screaming in terror persists long after they actually learn to swim on their own.
On top of this, it is nearly impossible to get them to float! Which is pretty ironic since the whole point of the ISR classes was to get them to do exactly that. But, the truth is that these children absolutely hate being on their back due to the association with the survival swimming classes.
Because of the thrashing around and tantrum that these children throw when you try to get them to float, it then becomes necessary to teach them to lift their head to get a breath sooner than I would have taught them this skill.
For younger children, the normal progression of swim lessons is, teach the child to swim, then teach them to float, then teach them to roll over and float to breathe before teaching them to lift their head. However, because of the trauma they have associated with floating, it is necessary to teach these skills in reverse to these children.
The ironic but sad truth is children that have had survival swimming lessons, floating is the last thing that they are able to learn. They will swim freestyle, breaststroke, swim under water to get rings, and STILL have a tremendous aversion to floating and being on their back in the water.
Why Does ISR Cause Trauma?
To explain this, I have to first explain how they train these children to roll over when water contacts their face. We all know that when you train a dog or a cat, positive reinforcement works best, as with the click training system. ISR implements both negative and positive reinforcement to train these children.
They make the children associate having water on their face as the negative thing, because water on their face=not being able to breathe. Which, is of course, true. They couple this with the positive reinforcement of being able to breathe if they roll over and find air.
So the negative stimulus is being in the water face-down or in any other position that causes your face to be submerged. The positive, or the "reward" for doing the roll over correctly is being able to breathe. In addition to rewarding them by grabbing them once they do roll over.
This is all coupled with timing it with the child's breathing and closely monitoring the child. The ISR instructors are gentle (until they start dunking & tossing them in the pool) and do undergo a decent amount of training to learn how to do this. Their hearts are in the right place. It is truly unfortunate that the lessons do not stick with the children, cause so much damage, and make it extremely difficult for any future swim instructor.
Now we'll get into where the trauma sets in. If you have ever seen or worse heard an ISR class in progress, it is not a very pleasant experience. Most of the children scream and cry the entire ten minutes, but even the rare ones that don't cry and scream end up traumatized!
This is because of the negative association that these classes train these children to have towards water being on their face. This is the only thing that sticks with the children past their ISR "graduation". They don't remember the positive rolling over to float part! Hence the trauma for the children and difficulty for the poor future swim instructor or parents that then have to teach their child that having their face in the water is how you actually swim.
Even the children that appear to be taking well to the ISR classes end up with this negative association to having water on their face.
Additionally, in order to maintain this ability to "self-rescue" you MUST do what are called "maintenance lessons". Consistently. Monthly. Without fail – until they learn to actually swim. Meaning if you are not able to swim year-round for any reason whether it is due to weather, school, being out of town a lot and think you can wait till next summer, or skip a couple maintenance lessons, you can't! They will have forgotten and be traumatized the next time they are in the pool.
How To Undo The Traumatization Caused by ISR?
If your child has already been through the ISR classes, you need to enroll them in normal swimming lessons as soon as possible. In fact, if they learn to actually swim immediately after the ISR graduation. The risk of being traumatized from the classes is significantly reduced.
Unfortunately, if it has been a while since your child's "graduation" from ISR, they are likely already traumatized. BUT this doesn't mean that they can't learn to swim and love the water eventually! I have undone the traumatization in all of my lessons that have had ISR.
I do teach private swim lessons, though, so in a group setting I don't know how effective the classes would be. It may be necessary to seek private instruction due to the incessant crying, screaming, and tantrums that ISR graduates exhibit.
Why Is ISR So Popular?
ISR has a phenomenal marketing strategy. They use parents' fear of something as horrible as drowning happening to their child to make these parents feel that ISR is the only option. They even go so far as to make it seem unethical to not do ISR classes. They have branded themselves as the superheroes of the drowning and water safety world.
All the websites that promote ISR have a horror story of a parent that had a child that drowned and they justify the crying and screams of terror that occur in the classes with, "I would do anything to hear my baby cry again,"- In reference to the one they lost. Then they claim, "If my child had only had ISR classes it would not have happened!"
Unfortunately, that is not true. Out of all of the children I have taught that have had ISR classes only one of those children may have actually floated if they were to fall in the pool. The rest of these children are in such a state of fear and panic when they get water on their face that there is NO WAY they would, or even can, float.
In order to float in a pool you need to be relaxed. Aside from that, rolling over to float is the last thing on these kid's mind when they are in this state of panic.
What Are The Other Options?
I recommend beginning swim lessons around 18 months old, but children can and should begin being exposed to water before that. However, that does not mean that ISR is the answer. There are simple things that you can do at home to begin encouraging your child's love of water. In fact swimming lessons can begin sooner if you work on these things from an early age! Please read "How to Prep Your Child for Swimming Lessons," to learn the different ways!
Before learning to swim (ISR is not learning how to swim, 99% of these kids would never float if they fell in), instead of relying on your child to "self-rescue", children first and foremost should not even have access to any body of water. That means if you have a pool at home, you need a pool fence. There is no excuse to not have a pool fence, you can purchase an affordable one on Amazon and install it yourself.
In addition to a pool fence the doors leading out of the house should have an extra lock that is too high for children to reach. If having new doors installed is too much, make sure to child proof the door knobs with these or other door knob covers available on Amazon. Both the doors and the pool fence should be kept locked at all times. Preventing access is the best way to prevent drowning.
Additionally when around water, children should never be left unsupervised. This is true even if your child already knows how to swim!
What It All Boils Down To.
Essentially ISR classes are so harmful because they are incomplete. They don't finish teaching the children to swim. They are like "child can roll over and float like a buoy in the middle of the pool, my work here is done!" When there is so much more to learning how to swim than just being able to not drown for a month.
For the children that are older that they do teach to swim, float, swim. There is also no need for the ISR classes as they can and will learn all these things in a regular swim class. Additionally, in a regular swim class they will learn in a way that it sticks with them.
The reality is that the last thing these children do is float on their back, so why bother with ISR to begin with?
Written by Cat V.