The Peaceful Swim Teacher

This is from a few years ago now! My three boys are adult sized teenagers now. Their adventures in water have supported their active and thriving childhoods.

As the warmer weather returns, I am already seeing a lot of children and families enjoying the water in many places.

Here is your reminder to show peace and respect to every child in the water. Or, if you are a parent or carer, to facilitate that. It does not matter if your child's swim teacher or other families around you agree. We can all make our own choices even if we have to fight sometimes. Children deserve respected lives in every area.

You, as a parent or carer, get to set the expectations for how your child and children are treated. We have so much power. As times change socially, children have ever more chances for respectful experiences in water.

You can change swim school, teacher, or learn to teach your own child - if you are unhappy with the level of care or the quality of instruction, your children are receiving.

We get to drive social change and if other people won't accept respecting our kids, we can remove our business at any time.

This page is mostly about advocacy and the sharing of information around swim skills. This is based on my over 20 years experience as a teacher and coach and my intersecting knowledge base around the human rights of children, as well as a background of swimming as my main sport . I will continue to share things now that the weather has warmed up 🥰

(Video is my child jumping off a diving platform. A reminder that respect maximises results as well as being just the right thing to do.)

A friend filmed me for a little part of a long birthday swim I swum on Monday, in celebration of my new age. I loved this footage for now nice the sun looks. I think it captures the joy of swimming skilfully also, how fun it becomes to move through the water in playful ways. I felt peaceful at this time.

The water and moving within it, can be such a gift to become skilled at.

As a mother of five, this beautiful sport has nurtured my body at every step of my adult life as well as throughout childhood. Peacefulness at swimming is about so much more than results but about beauty and joy within peoples' complex lives. The gift of calm journeys in water, should not be underestimated. We have whole lives to live - remaining in love with swimming has so much to offer.

What are you offering your child or yourself, in the water? What is it comprised of? Does it have connection and freedom within it? Is it something which will stand the scrutiny of time? Will it support their holistic wellbeing? Will they tell stories of their happiness and connection in water, or their fear and trauma? It is never too late to begin redesigning either. Connection and genuine care, can support in healing.

Social Tuesday Swim School/Club 🥰

Sports in Australia are often unhealthy places for children to be. Perhaps their bodies are healthy (also arguable because rest is often not supported), but the environment isn't healthy. Pitting children against each other for performance, is certainly not aligned with their optimal development in many ways. Children need acceptance into communities rather than highly conditional admittance into community.

I've kept my children out of traditional sports groups and have closely assessed those we are involved with, to provide loving and safe places for them to be.

Access to play without adult interference, has gifted my children with strong bodies and the ability to assess risk; to set them up for the sports they have chosen later. It was not organised sports which provided my children a sporting education foundation. It was the freedom to move their bodies in diverse ways and swimming and being otherwise active, with their family. It was being free, with loving guidance and genuine care for their wellbeing. Their bodies were never seen as things to mould with forced "grit" but as deserving of respect and tender care. This was the foundation upon which all their skills have since been built.

This video is teamwork at weekly social swim club with a group of friends 🥰 We will race with laughter and joy at the centre of our experience as well, if we do race or time ourselves over a distance.

Practicing K*k Sool after swimming this morning 🥰

K*k Sool Won of South Eastern Perth