Countywide : Classes Help Kids Learn Pool Safety

With a pair of swim goggles strapped to his head, 6-year-old Kenneth Chambers clung to the swimming pool’s edge, then kicked his feet and practiced his free-style stroke and side-breathing technique in the water.

After his first lesson recently at a Buena Park swim school, Kenneth said he wanted to keep learning, “maybe to save myself.”

Learning to swim can be a matter of life and death, local swim instructors say. But it also can be fun.

Kenneth’s mother, Annie Chambers, enrolled both her son and herself in lessons at Australian Swim School.

“My No. 1 concern is that he learn pool safety. No. 2 is to have fun,” said Chambers of Garden Grove.

As summer nears, swimming lessons are offered through private schools, community organizations such as the YMCA and city-sponsored recreation programs, which typically begin in June. Swimming lesson prices vary depending on the private or public program, and private and group lessons are available.

The YMCA of Orange County offers swimming programs through its six branches in Fullerton, Newport Beach, Laguna Niguel, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana and Yorba Linda, said Cathy Paugh, YMCA executive assistant. Prices for lessons vary depending on the branch and whether a participant is a YMCA member, she said.

Anaheim YMCA, an independent organization, also offers year-round swimming instruction.

The city of Fountain Valley will offer swimming classes beginning in late June. Two-week sessions will cost $25.

Diane Bainbridge--who helps operate the Australian Swim Schools founded by her husband, John Bainbridge--said, “We found that the value of working with children in a group was that the kids enjoyed their lessons by working with their peers.”

Alison Mitchell, who operates Aliso Hills Swim Ranch in Mission Viejo with her husband, Robert, said that for younger children, learning to swim “enhances their motor and intellectual development because they get so much stimulus. . . . They learn to love the water.”

Corinda Vasquez, owner of Corinda’s Swim School, offers year-round private lessons--$12 for a 15-minute class--for infants, children and adults.

Vasquez, who offers lessons at Underwater Scuba Adventures in Anaheim, said she teaches “survival floating” skills.

“If a child falls into a pond, lake, pool, spa or any large body of water, I teach (the child) to roll over and float,” she said.

Swim instructors said that swimming should be practiced periodically after it’s learned.

“If a child isn’t experiencing the water once a week, they don’t remain safe in the water and they don’t progress,” John Bainbridge said.

Swimming Safety

Here are some tips to help prevent drownings or near-drownings of children in swimming pools:

* Don’t leave children alone--not for a second--near a pool; keep constant eye contact when they are around a pool.

* Get trained in CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and first aid.

* Enclose pool with fence; install self-closing gates with latches out of the reach of children.

* Place a telephone at the pool so calls can be answered there and post emergency numbers.

* Keep toys out of pool, as they can attract children.

* Enroll children in a year-round swim program.

* Never consider children “pool-safe” or “drown-proof,” even if they have had swim lessons. Source: Orange County Trauma Society and Australian Swim School