{"id":8437,"date":"2016-10-14T15:06:42","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T15:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/swim-school-teaches-babies-how-to-float\/"},"modified":"2016-10-14T15:06:42","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T15:06:42","slug":"swim-school-teaches-babies-how-to-float","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/swim-school-teaches-babies-how-to-float\/","title":{"rendered":"Swim school teaches babies how to float"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Vanessa Nason<\/strong>\u00a0GLOBE CORRESPONDENT\u00a0\u00a0OCTOBER 12, 2016<\/p>\n

Babies a mere 3 months old are learning how to paddle themselves onto their backs, floating with their heads above water. Toddlers \u2014 fully clothed \u2014 are jumping into pools, learning to get accustomed to the heaviness they feel as their shoes, shirts, and jeans fill with water.<\/p>\n

Drowning is the number one cause of accidental death for kids age newborn to 4, said Andy Thompson who, with his wife Tapanee, began operating an outpost of\u00a0British Swim School<\/a>\u00a0at Stoneham\u2019s LA Fitness on June 1.<\/p>\n

The goal is to teach kids water safety and survival skills.<\/h4>\n

The swim school has been operating internationally for 35 years. At its first Greater Boston location, the Thompsons are holding \u201cSplash-A-Palooza\u201d \u2014 a try-it-out water sensory class \u2014 Tuesdays at 10 a.m. for children under 2 and their parents.<\/p>\n

\"Alex<\/p>\n

During clothing week, older students \u201csimulates the real experience\u201d of accidentally falling in a body of water, said Tapanee Thompson. It\u2019s part of the school\u2019s goal: To equip them with the necessary knowledge to prevent drowning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a shocking thing these days that people, especially in New England, aren\u2019t motivated to get proper aquatic skills taught to their kids,\u201d said Andy Thompson. He said 70 percent of drowning deaths nationwide occur when one or more parent is present, and in 75 percent, children are missing from sight no more than five minutes.<\/p>\n

The school promotes parental awareness and vigilance around water. The Thompsons give water safety talks to parents at libraries, daycare centers, and other places. The school also issues Water Watcher Cards: lanyards worn around the designated pool watcher\u2019s neck. When the parent or another appointed pool watcher must step away, they hand off their lanyard to someone else. This ensures someone is always responsible for watching what happens in and around the water.<\/p>\n

The Thompsons have only been in business for three months, but already have a new goal in mind. After reading a\u00a0Globe article<\/a>\u00a0that reported immigrants are more likely to drown in Massachusetts, they decided they wanted to expand their school to focus on this vulnerable group.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to push [our classes] out to everybody, and we want to do charity and give free lessons [to those who can\u2019t afford them], but we have to find more pools,\u201d said Tapanee Thompson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Vanessa Nason\u00a0GLOBE CORRESPONDENT\u00a0\u00a0OCTOBER 12, 2016 Babies a mere 3 months old are learning how to paddle themselves onto their backs, floating with their heads above water. Toddlers \u2014 fully clothed \u2014 are jumping into pools, learning to get accustomed to the heaviness they feel as their shoes, shirts, and jeans fill with water. Drowning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-newswater-safety"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/britishswimschool.com\/greater-boston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}