Kid's swim schools in strip malls

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do strip malls have pools? Do they build them out back next to the nail salon and the tanning salon!?

Hahah yes, see the Goldfish swim school in Rockville next to the SOMA salon.

OP, the national swim society (I made up that term) successfully convinced parents that swimming is a NECESSITY and the only way to accomplish it is to spend $1000 a year at these swim schools. Every parent I know complains how little their kids learn from these schools. Unless you're doing a private lesson, the amount of time your kid spends practicing with the instructor is less than 8 minutes a week.

The strip mall classes usually have smaller groups than the county programs. Goldfish had 3-4 kids per instructor/lane. The county programs had 8-10 kids per instructor. When they don't yet swim, in county lessons, that means that your kid has to sit on the edge of the pool freezing while 9 other kids take a turn before they get to swim again. It's a pretty miserable experience. Mine did better with warmer water and less waiting at a strip mall place. In turn, that meant I had to deal with fewer tears and less resistance. Once my kids could swim some and lessons had many kids swimming at once (less waiting and freezing), we switched back to county lessons.

[Anonymous]

Before I had kids I never expected to be spending 45 minutes a week in a strip mall swim school but that's how my kid learned to swim.

County rec programs are great in theory, but at least in this area, they can be hard to impossible to get into, or poorly run (or both!). That's how I learned to swim and I thought my kid would too, and then we struggled to get spots in lessons and when we did, half the time the instructor wouldn't show or they'd "forget" class was running and it would start 20 minutes late. Or something would be wrong with the pool.

Also, waitlists for many of the pool clubs in this area can be really long. We've been on the list for the PG Pool for 6 years and probably will never get off. We are looking for another pool and may just suck it up and join one that is further away from us, but in the meantime, our kid needed to learn to swim.

To people saying the strip mall schools don't work -- they can. My kid was afraid to put her face in the water when she was 4 yrs old, and now she's 5 and she can swim. We won't go to one forever but it was worth it for us. And while pricier than county classes, it wasn't that bad -- we just do it from May to September and take weeks off for vacations. Spent about $600 this year. Worth it given the results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do strip malls have pools? Do they build them out back next to the nail salon and the tanning salon!?

The pools are really small, not like a 25m or anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do strip malls have pools? Do they build them out back next to the nail salon and the tanning salon!?

Hahah yes, see the Goldfish swim school in Rockville next to the SOMA salon.

OP, the national swim society (I made up that term) successfully convinced parents that swimming is a NECESSITY and the only way to accomplish it is to spend $1000 a year at these swim schools. Every parent I know complains how little their kids learn from these schools. Unless you're doing a private lesson, the amount of time your kid spends practicing with the instructor is less than 8 minutes a week.

The strip mall classes usually have smaller groups than the county programs. Goldfish had 3-4 kids per instructor/lane. The county programs had 8-10 kids per instructor. When they don't yet swim, in county lessons, that means that your kid has to sit on the edge of the pool freezing while 9 other kids take a turn before they get to swim again. It's a pretty miserable experience. Mine did better with warmer water and less waiting at a strip mall place. In turn, that meant I had to deal with fewer tears and less resistance. Once my kids could swim some and lessons had many kids swimming at once (less waiting and freezing), we switched back to county lessons.

PP here. I only have experience with the little kids who all have to wait for the instructor to show them something. So 3 kids are waiting on the step while 1 is with the teacher, unless they are practicing walking along the edge. So in a 30 minute class, that gives about 8 minutes per kid. That makes sense it's a lot more time in the pool for the bigger kids.

[Anonymous]

They are both more expensive and more convenient than county parks and rec lessons. Because they ONLY do kids lessons, the water is warmer than a rec center pool and the changing area is set up to be as convenient as possible for parents helping children. We used Big Blue for a bit and it was super easy to reschedule online if we needed to.

I still recall when I had a 30 pound toddler and was very heavily pregnant and had my kids in lessons at an Arlington county pool. There were these elderly women who would put their bags and personal items all over the benches and one woman would use the changing table as a shelf for her purse. I could not bend over far enough to change my slippery, wet toddler on the floor or one of the few open spots on a bench and really needed to put him on the changing table to get him dressed and that old B would glare at me every Saturday when I asked her to move her purse to a locker so parents could use the changing table for it’s intended purpose. All for a class that I had to plan ahead and register for at 7:00am on the dot like I was trying to get Taylor Swift tickets. That’s why people go to Kids First and Big Blue - because literally every thing about the location, building, and program is designed to make it as easy as possible for parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do strip malls have pools? Do they build them out back next to the nail salon and the tanning salon!?

Hahah yes, see the Goldfish swim school in Rockville next to the SOMA salon.

OP, the national swim society (I made up that term) successfully convinced parents that swimming is a NECESSITY and the only way to accomplish it is to spend $1000 a year at these swim schools. Every parent I know complains how little their kids learn from these schools. Unless you're doing a private lesson, the amount of time your kid spends practicing with the instructor is less than 8 minutes a week.

The strip mall classes usually have smaller groups than the county programs. Goldfish had 3-4 kids per instructor/lane. The county programs had 8-10 kids per instructor. When they don't yet swim, in county lessons, that means that your kid has to sit on the edge of the pool freezing while 9 other kids take a turn before they get to swim again. It's a pretty miserable experience. Mine did better with warmer water and less waiting at a strip mall place. In turn, that meant I had to deal with fewer tears and less resistance. Once my kids could swim some and lessons had many kids swimming at once (less waiting and freezing), we switched back to county lessons.

This. The strip mall schools are best for little kids new to swimming. Warm water, small classes, and the instructors make it fun for them and provide a very safe environment. It's also nice at this age to be able to watch the class from the viewing area because it can reassure a nervous little kid to see mom or dad sitting nearby, plus I found it helped me understand what my kid was working on so we could reinforce when we went to the pool together.

Once a kid has some basic safety skills and can swim 15-20 feet or so on their own, the strip mall schools become less useful, IMO. At that point I think you either need to switch to county classes to just help kids build basic skills and get in practice, or if your kid is really into swimming, look into clubs or private instruction where they can really teach proper form for strokes and skills like flip-and-turn. The strip mall schools are too expensive for casual swimmers at that point, and insufficient instruction for more serious swimmers.

But for little kids who have very few water skills and might be a little nervous about swimming? The strip mall schools are perfect for this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are both more expensive and more convenient than county parks and rec lessons. Because they ONLY do kids lessons, the water is warmer than a rec center pool and the changing area is set up to be as convenient as possible for parents helping children. We used Big Blue for a bit and it was super easy to reschedule online if we needed to.

I still recall when I had a 30 pound toddler and was very heavily pregnant and had my kids in lessons at an Arlington county pool. There were these elderly women who would put their bags and personal items all over the benches and one woman would use the changing table as a shelf for her purse. I could not bend over far enough to change my slippery, wet toddler on the floor or one of the few open spots on a bench and really needed to put him on the changing table to get him dressed and that old B would glare at me every Saturday when I asked her to move her purse to a locker so parents could use the changing table for it’s intended purpose. All for a class that I had to plan ahead and register for at 7:00am on the dot like I was trying to get Taylor Swift tickets. That’s why people go to Kids First and Big Blue - because literally every thing about the location, building, and program is designed to make it as easy as possible for parents.

Very much agree with this. Especially for kids who might be reluctant to go to swimming lessons. It's a really nice environment and they are extra great with little kids in terms of being encouraging and making it fun. So kids create positive associations with swimming.

My kid outgrew Big Blue. Loved it for about a year and a half and then was like "it's boring and I don't like the instructors at the higher levels." Their approach just doesn't work as well once kids are 6/7 and no longer working on basic skills. So that's when we switched to a county program where bigger classes means more friends (and more time with friends). But by then the kids don't need to be babied with warm water and turning everything into a game.

[Anonymous]

Because the county rec lessons are terrible. My kid learned nothing from them other than some basic water safety and not to be afraid of the pool. But he was swimming pretty well within a few months at Big Blue.

It does seem like the kids swim schools will get them swimming across the pool, but if you kid wants to be a more competitive swimmer, they will need specific lessons on developing strokes and techniques that the kids swim schools won’t be able to do.