Once a year we have Clothing Week, a special week where swimmers come to lessons and get in the water fully dressed.
This year, clothing week will be May 2–7 for all swimmers in lessons.
Why We Have Clothing Week
According to the CDC, every day, two children under 14 die from unintentional drowning. In California, drowning is a leading cause of injury-related deaths among children under the age of five.
Drowning and water-related accidents don’t just happen when children are in a swimsuit. Kids can fall into a pool or other body of water while fully clothed. In fact, most child drowning victims are found with their clothes on.
Falling into a pool of water with clothes on can produce fear and hysteria in an otherwise calm swimmer. Sometimes one minor thing (such as not being in a bathing suit) can throw a child completely off and cause him or her to forget the skills they have learned. We want your kids to know that although it may feel strange to roll over or swim to the wall with clothes on, it is still something they can and should do when in the water.
Even if your child doesn’t know any water safety skills yet, having this practice can help them react quicker and prevent panic until someone can come to their rescue. A little bit of time can make a big difference in an emergency situation
How You Can Prepare for Clothing Week
- Have a swimsuit on under clothes. The first 10 minutes of lessons will be in clothes and will be focused on safety skills. Then kids can take clothes off and practice additional skills for the remainder of the lesson.
- Bring an extra plastic bag to put wet clothes in after the lesson.
- The heavier the clothing, the more the child will feel the weight of it. Think jeans, sweatshirts, tennis shoes or boots for maximum impact.
- If you are in our session program, clothing day will be Tuesday, May 3.
- Clothing week is for all swimmers but especially encouraged if your swimmer is in Parent Tot through Piranha level.
For the safety and health of other swimmers, please follow our diaper policy during clothing week. Just be mindful that when your child is at home in a regular disposable diaper, it is much heavier and not as buoyant when wet.
Our goal with clothing week is to practice safety skills with your child to help prevent panic in case they ever were to fall into a pool of water. We want swimmers to gain some experience with this while supervised, so they can react accordingly if they were ever in this situation at home.
