A toddler slips out of the house and heads for the family swimming pool. The boy falls in the water, and sinks, but something amazing happens next. Instead of drowning, he flips on his back, floats to the top and cries for help.
Too good to be true? You decide! Watch the video making the rounds on the Internet.
An organization called Infant Swimming Resource is teaching baby aquatic survival skills and drowning prevention classes to infants as young as 6 months old.
Harvey Barnett Ph.D. and his wife JoAnn have developed Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) into a nationally recognized program with a specific mission: prevent childhood drowning through specialized survival training. According to their statistics, since ISR’s inception in 1967 there have been more than 1700 aquatic survivals witnessed and 783 survivals unwitnessed.
Read more on becoming an instructor.
Yes it's impressive however as I was watching lessons I feel it’s controversies as there are issues of separation and broken trust since parents are asked to avoid responding to cry which is part of the learning process. It’s obvious that the baby is not connecting water with joy and love rather with fear and separations. And mostly what you need to ask yourself: if my child would go through this training and gain the ability to save himself from drowning am I been released from the duty of keeping him safe around water and if not why to put them in such a stressed program?
Posted by: anat | August 29, 2008 at 01:26 PM
Does anyone have any personal experience with this method? What are your thoughts about it.
I am very interested in learning more about ISR, but would like some other opinions.
Jane
Posted by: Jane Johnston | August 19, 2008 at 01:10 PM