Mrs. Mildred is both similar to and completely different from Mr. Ed (where Fenn and Boone have taken lessons before). She is tough like Mr. Ed, but she does allow you to comfort your child more than Mr. Ed. However, she is not afraid to get in their face and tell them they're not allowed to cry at her house. This wasn't a problem for Fenn, because out of 8 nights, he only had one bad night where he just wasn't himself and was a little whiny. Also, she does not allow anyone to say "ohhh, the water is cold!" when entering the pool. You have to toughen up, shut your mouth, and get in and get wet within the first couple of minutes.
All this aside, she gets results and is a good swim teacher. We'll probably use her again next summer, especially for Fenn. Boone may not quite be ready for her class due to her techniques. While the parent is in the pool with the child, her technique is very hands off for much of the class. The child needs to be able to follow directions and has to swim on his own a lot. And Boone will barely be 2 years old next summer, where Fenn was just over 2 1/2 at the time of this class. Six months makes a huge difference.
Her big thing is making sure the child knows what it feels like when they fall into the water, with all that water rushing around you and splashing everywhere. She says if a child has never experienced that before, that's when they panic and get disoriented and can't get to the side of the pool. She teaches them to swim to the side, grab on, and climb out of the pool. She also works on coming up for air, using their hands/arms, and floating on their back. She does not teach dog paddling. She teaches kids to swim with their faces in the water. Oh, and one way she shows kids what it feels like to fall into the pool is to drop them off the end of the diving board and have them swim to the side... with mommy or daddy watching from the shallow end of the pool!
So here are a few photos from the last class. I (mommy) was in the pool with Fenn and daddy was on the side taking pictures. In the first photos, Fenn is jumping into the pool in his typical 'flying squirrel' pose and doing a great job of splashing mommy. And in the next photos, Fenn is swimming across the pool by himself. He couldn't quite hold his breath long enough to make it all the way across, but he came close. Mrs. Mildred was there to help him with the last couple of feet. Keep in mind that she did not help him swim across. She was not touching him at all. She was only swimming along beside him. And we were so impressed with how far he made it by himself. After climbing out of the pool, the kids were instructed to sit on the bench and wait. Most nights, it was cold being outside the water and being wet. And the kids would sit there shivering, and sometimes whining. But Fenn never complained. He just sat there and waited.
In the next group of photos, Fenn is being 'tossed' off the end of the diving board and is swimming to the side. Because of the distance between the water level (kind of low in my opinion) and the edge of the pool, Fenn had a hard time reaching up and grabbing the side. So Mrs. Mildred actually had to help him once she saw that he wasn't going to be able to do it on his own. That was not easy for mommy to watch while standing in the shallow end of the pool.
At the end of the class, the kids got to go down the slide. This was pretty special to Fenn because he's been watching people go down the slide at the YMCA pool all summer and has been wanting to do it. But you have to be able to swim to the side all by yourself without a parent at the bottom to help you. So he got to do it at Mrs. Mildred's and then swam to mommy.
So he did great with the lessons. He still has not made the connection to start using his hands. But he'll get there. He kicks well, can hold his breath, can climb out by himself, and loves to jump off the side of the pool. I think he'll be swimming pretty good next summer.
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