Because your instructions or buzzwords emphasized “small and fast,” your feedback should then be congruent with your instructions.  In other words, when your student finishes the swim, you should comment on how your student performed the part of the skill that you had him/her focusing on.  

Too often, swim instructors will tell their student to concentrate on one thing and correct them on something else.  It’s important to try and avoid this mistake because it indirectly confuses your students and isn’t the best motivational tactic in the world either.  On the other hand, if your feedback specifically relates to what your instructions were before the swim, then you increase your effectiveness. 

Why?  Because your student’s focus is rewarded when he or she does well.   At the very least, your students will learn to focus on the task at hand, trying their best to impress you, especially if you reward them with praise when they are successful.

You can learn more about this swim lessons tip and many more in the Teach Like a Pro DVD.

The next Swim Lessons University “One-Day Conference” will take place in Las Vegas on Oct. 11th.   Register online today at Swim Lessons University.

Think about that . . .  this word of advice may be one of the best swim lesson tips you could receive for teaching anyone.  If your student is full of curiosity, excitement, and driven to learn and get better, the child will do wonderfully.  The best swim lessons instructor knows how to engage their students to the degree that they can not help but to learn and excel.

In the DVD, Teach Like a Pro you can learn many tricks of the trade that will allow you to be more effective and even motivate your students.   Whatever you can do to create an internal drive in the student will enhance his/her ability to master the skills at hand.

Whether you are teaching a preschooler who needs learning to be like play or an adult who needs the confidence to relax and acquire skills.   When one is in pursuit of knowledge vs. the other way around, teachers will get the best from their students.

Tricks to Making Swim Lessons More Fun!

• A Funny Preschool Story
• Characteristics of Preschoolers
• A SURPRISE VIDEO
• Your evaluation of the Surprise Video
• Role Playing Activity
• A new idea for you to try!
• Video samples of techniques that work
• Motivational award ideas
• Why my “most praised teacher” wouldn’t make my “All-time” TOP 10 List?!?!
• Differences in approaches to teaching beginners shared on video
• I’M GUILTY TOO!
• An example for you to listen to . . .
• Discipline Strategies
• Loving Punishments vs. Power Punishments

I hope you will join me to hear “the rest of the story” at the Swim Lessons University Super Conference in Indianapolis or Las Vegas.  Register now for just $75 and receive 5 FREE Online Tests & Certificate programs ($50 value) PLUS MUCH MORE!

Trust me, I am making this conference worth your while!  Register today at www.swimlessonsuniversity.com

Discipline is the gift of responsible love.  Discipline and rules and punishment are related, but they are not the same.   Discipline is  the continual everyday process of helping a child learn self discipline.  No child is born with it.  It has to be taught.

Disciplining a child “includes” making rules or “setting limits.”  Good ones have these characteristics in common:

• Serve a purposes
• Within a child’s capacity
• They are consistent
• They are express a concern and/or ensure safety.

What do you do when the rules are broken?  First, I want to stress the importance of showing appreciation for what children are doing well, because this is often more effective than the punishment.   But when you do have to punish, here are some do’s and don’ts:

Don’ts

• React irrationally
• Retailiate with force
• Verbally abuse the child himself

Do’s

• React with a calm, firm reminder that you don’t approve of the behavior.
• Remind the child that there are consequences for unacceptable behaviors
• Be understanding (in some cases) but certain behaviors still warrant consequences

Reasonable consequences  in a Swim Lesson :
1.  Warning (with reminder that the next consequence will result in time out of the pool)

2.  Time Out (with reminder that the next consequence will result in you and child having talk with parent)

3.  Talk with Parent (with suggestion of further revoked privileges at home).

At home, you usually hear that time outs should be about “1 minute per year old.”  For swim lessons, however, I usually go with about “30 seconds of time out per year old” because the parents are paying for the lesson AND 30 seconds out of the pool probably feels much longer than a minute to a child who likes the water!

ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU KEEP A FIRM DISTINCTION  BETWEEN THE BEHAVIOR AND THE PERSON.

Love is at the root of all healthy discipline.  The desire to be loved is a powerful motivation for children to behave in ways to please you.

There are many other swim lesson techniques that will also have a huge impact on the child’s behavior.  For example, the way you use feedback, the way you allocate practice time, the way you minimize downtime (when kids, especially boys,  get into trouble), your class management skills, etc.  Learn more about these in the Swim Lessons University Instructional DVD “You Can Teach Like a Pro !”

When developing Swim Lessons Plans for Preschoolers, you want to start your class on the right foot.  Two of my favorite television shows for preschoolers are PBS’s “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood” and BBC Kids “Rosie & Jim.” One thing you will notice with these two shows as well as many other successful shows for young children is that each show starts the same way.  This is also a great swim lessons idea!

In case you’re not familiar with the late and legendary Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood television series, each time he began a show he would walk into his television living room at the start of the visit singing, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

The song is gentle and caring, and features comforting lines like “It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood” and ends with “Won’t you please? Won’t you please? Please won’t you be my neighbor?”

For your swim lesson plans , the next idea you can take from these show is to PRETEND!  Preschoolers love to use their imagination and pretend.

At Swim Lessons University, we start each of our Swim 101 classes with a swim lessons activity story called “Your Motorboat’s Stuck in the Mud.”  In this activity, you (the teacher) start the activity off by saying, “Once upon a time, i.e., Johnny was taking a boat ride, when all of the sudden, the boat got stuck in the mud!   Then you really get your students engaged by saying, “now say what I say:”  “That’s okay (that’s okay), I know how to get the boat out of the mud ( I know how to get the boat out of the mud). ”  All you have to do is kick like this (All you have to do is kick like this)!”    And the teacher demonstrates a stationary kick holding the bench or the step.

I look forward to sharing more swim lessons ideas for teaching preschoolers in my next blog.

I just got off the phone with the Las Vegas Hilton and moved my conference up to Monday, October 11th!
When I originally set the date for the Swim Lessons University Super Conference, I didn’t know USSSA was doing an Infant-Toddler course that day. I know many of you will want to do both so now you can!

If you haven’t taken the US Swim School Infant-Toddler course, my friend and colleague Bob Hubbard will be administering the course. I certainly encourage you take it (I have)!

Look forward to seeing you at the Swim Lessons University Conference in Las Vegas or Indianapolis.

• Brand new benchmarks for Infants & Toddlers
• 3 Types of Infant-Toddler Swimming Lessons
• How your product will determine your success
• Should your lessons involve crying?
• VIDEO FOOTAGE of my Parent & Me classes including some that NO ONE HAS EVER SEEN BEFORE!
• What parents KNOW (and what they DON’T KNOW!)
• A waste of time?
• Is the next Michael Phelps in your class?
• What parents need to know
• Educating your Swim Lesson parents
• A personal email to Jim Reiser

I hope you will join me to hear “the rest of the story” at the Swim Lessons University Super Conference in Indianapolis or Las Vegas.  Register now for just $75 and receive 5 FREE Online Tests & Certificate programs ($50 value) PLUS MUCH MORE!

Trust me, I am making this conference worth your while!  Register today at www.swimlessonsuniversity.com

Does your swim school experience this problem?   Of course it’s not only a problem for swim school business, it’s a very serious problem for the child’s safety.  I would like to share one thing that I have done and another that I am doing right now in terms of SWIM LESSON OBJECTIVES.

Number one, I have created a motivational awards bracelet system that includes a safety component: Water Safety System.

As of the moment, I am working on a large business card (3″ x 4″) that will be soon available for customization for your own swim school at a very reasonable price.   The full color card will feature content on the front of the card that is about about YOU.  Your pics, contact info., testimonials about your teaching, etc.   The content on the back of the card is my copyrighted information that will instill to your swim parents not only the importance of learning to swim, but what their child is capable of and should learn at a variety of given ages.  In other words– Swim Lesson Objectives.

Here is what the back of my card (soon to be yours too and available on Swim Lessons University website), will look like:

Would your child survive?

Only automobile accidents take more lives than drowning for children ages 1-14.   How well does your child swim?    Would your child survive an accidental fall into the water?

Can your child pass the following swim tests?

1 – 2 years olds: Can your child comfortably hold his breath and swim a short distance for up to 5 seconds?  Pass / Fail

2 – 3 years olds: Can your child get back to the side of the pool from a standing entry?  Pass / Fail

3 – 4 years olds: Can your child swim with the face in the water and get a breath when needed for at least 15 feet?  Pass / Fail

4 – 5 years olds: Can your child swim 30 feet of backstroke and freestyle with side breathing?  Pass / Fail

5 – 6 years olds: Can your child swim 25 yards of backstroke and freestyle with side breathing?  Pass / Fail

6 – 8 years olds: Can your child swim 100 yards using a variety of formal strokes?  Pass / Fail

Your child is capable of the above Swim Lessons University ™benchmarks.  Help reduce your child’s risk of drowning by helping your child achieve those benchmarks, using the Note & Float ™system, and following the “Safer 3!”

Learning to swim saves lives.  Give your child a life-time gift–teach him/her to swim!

Of course there are children who may accomplish these objectives earlier, and some who enroll later.  Nevertheless, this gives your new parents of young children especially a set of reasonable Swim Lessons Objectives or benchmarks for their child.

Dear Coach Reiser:

My name is Brad Kerr and I spoke with you last summer.  You basically gave me a free consultation on how I could go about starting a swim lesson company here in Tennessee.  I am writing a year later to thank you so much as it has gone so well thanks to you.

Because of  your swim lesson curriculum I have done so well that I have enough clients in enough places that I eventually has an apartment complex allow me to use their pool as my home base for FREE!  Even in the winter I had people asking me for lessons with Mr. Brad!

Well I just wanted to let you know because I now have the confidence and drive to get it done thanks to you.  I want to thank you for being kind enough to guide me when others thought I would fail.

Looking forward to another successful summer using your Swim Lesson Plans and swim lesson ideas.

Hope to see you at one of your conferences soon!

Thanks Coach!

Brad