Horrible Swimming Lessons

The past few weeks Hadley started swimming lessons. After watching compelling segments on the Today's show, we decided to so ISR Infant Swim Rescue. They claim they can teach you child as young as 6 months to hold their breath under water, flip to float on their back and hold themselves up on the edge of the pool. All while saying their technique is NOT the "drop them in the deep end and see what happens." I was very optimistic. Lessons were every weekday for 10 minutes lasting 4-6 weeks.

day 1- Hadley cried. I knew this was coming. She Loves to swim but its a strangers pool with a stranger. We survived. The instructor Ilise, was not very comforting to Hadley and kind of rude to me. But we made it through the ten minutes. At the end of the screamfest, the instructor gave me NO reassurance and no explanation of what had happened or what would happen in future lessons. It was all about her making her money. She has lessons EVERY ten minutes so literally there is one child being handed off to one parent and another child mid air going into the water. Water is dangerous and this looked like traumatic event, as a parent- I need to know WHY you are holding my baby under water and letting her swallow so much of it! This was off putting, but Jared reassured me that it was the first day and it was "survival swimming" and if Had fell into the pool there wouldn't be someone sweetly talking her to the steps. So we went back.

day 2- We had to fill out a "BUDS" sheet telling what Hadley had eaten (there was a list of forbidden foods), pooped, urinated, slept etc. Ilise was very belittling when the daycare didn't fill out Hadley's nap time. Not sure why that was important... Day 2 was alright, no better but not worse.

Day 3 Jared went with me and agreed Ilise was AGAIN not nice to me (very short) and there was no positive reinforcement given to Hadley. We had been arriving about 5-10 minutes before out time slot. As Ilise was handing the girl before us to her Mom and immediately handing me Had she snipped "if you would get here a littler earlier, you would have time to change her and get your full ten minutes.) HUH??? I was already Early, just waiting on her!! After that we arrived at 4:55 for the 5:20 lesson. Yet, we never got our full ten minutes...

Day 4- Hadley threw up from swallowing so much water.

Day 5- Hadley threw up again and a little piece of cheese came up. Instead of reassuring me, Ilise snapped that day care must have lied about what time they fed her OTHERWISE she wouldn't have thrown up in HER pool. This bothered me. There must be a LOT of water being swallowed if this happened two days in a row.

Day 6- Memorial Day. The guidelines set out by Ilise are very unforgiving if you cancel a lesson last minute. However, we were informed last minute that she would only be giving morning lessons on memorial day and we had paid for an afternoon slot- therefore we would be for fitting out lessons.

Day 7- Hadley goes into the water screaming. It was the day to practice floating on her back. I KNOW Hadley doesn't like this so I was prepared for crying. I was not prepared for how Ilise would handle it. Hadley (naturally) was trying to get off her back. (when you can't relax- you can't float= going under). Instead of positive reinforcement, Ilise would say to Hadley "you are not going to like what happens when you try to get away from me!" and would let her go under water, while screaming. I heard her say this three times. Each time Had would go under mid scream, swallowing TONS of water. She was panicking and instead of comforting her or letting her catch her breath Ilise immediately put her back on her back and would back "your not going to like what happens" and let her go under screaming again. I couldn't take it and walked to the edge of the pool taking Hadley out of the water. Ilise said, "I think she needs to burp". Ya think? She has 3 gallons of pool water in her!
I went home and after a short discussion Jared and I agreed we wouldn't go back.

I emailed Ilise telling her we wouldn't be continuing lessons, the ISR and her technique we not for us. Then (knowing full well the answer) for me weekly $85 back since she canceled out Monday lesson and tried to drown my child on Tuesday. She responded- what do you not like? Then- if you had read my guideline's, you would know you paid for the week whether you finish it or not.
I didn't respond. There was NO nice way to tell her she was a mean person and mistreated my child and me. And to reread her email and see for herself! She shouldn't be in a service industry with zero people skills!

ISR may work for a few kids, but be careful who your instructor is. I wish we would have asked for references and set up a meeting before lessons started to discuss what would be happening. For this lady, it was all about the money and not the kids, which she doesn't seem to like.