Swim survival lessons where babies are dropped in water are ‘harmful and distressing’
Emma Aspinall set up lessons to teach kids to "self rescue" after her son Loui drowned on a family holiday in 2013
SWIM survival classes where toddlers are dropped into water to learn how to save themselves from drowning have been branded "harmful" and "distressing" by experts.
Emma Aspinall, 33, set up the lessons after her son Loui, two, drowned while on a family holiday in Tunisia in 2013.
In the lessons babies and toddlers are dropped into water and taught to roll on to their backs to avoid drowning.
She found a programme in America teaching children to "self rescue" and raised £10,000 to complete the course herself before setting up classes here in the UK in an effort to save other children from drowning.
But Swim England and the Royal Life Saving Authority have slammed the swimming lessons and warned parents against taking their kids to these classes.
Françoise Freedman, a medical anthropologist at the University of Cambridge and an expert in baby swimming, told "[Forcing] a baby or toddler to float relies on extreme traumatic methods and, sadly, no amount of praise will compensate for the memory of inflicted pain — it just gets pushed into the recesses of our brain, where it is recorded."
Criticism erupted after a video was shared online of Mrs Aspinall repeatedly dropping a toddler into a pool while he cries.
At one point she drops a t-shirt over the toddlers face after he rolls onto his back, gurgling for breath.
Ms Freedman wrote a critical report, called Sink or Swim, Drown-Proofing Teaching Methodologies.
She warned that these methods could cause "trauma" in children that could lead to a fear of water.
Paul Thompson, co-founder of the swimming class company Water Babies, also criticised the method.
He said: "We are aware of the distress to children the self-rescue technique can cause and regard it as an aggressive, unproven method to make babies 'drown-proof'."
But Mrs Aspinall, from Wigan, said her method could save lives.
She said: "'One of my four-year-old students went on holiday and slipped into the pool and instantly got on to her float position.
"She had only had three weeks of lessons but was able to save herself."
She added that she knows of five other such classes in the UK.
Since The Times story was published Mrs Aspinall took to Facebook to defend her position to saying she has "never claimed that I am drown-proofing children".
She wrote: "If you want to take your children to the pool to sing and play then you go ahead, it's your choice as a parent.
"But for those who want their children to learn self rescue skills as an extra layer of protection then that's their choice too.....We all have freedom chose."
After launching the swimming lessons in June Mrs Aspinall told of her heartbreak over Loui's death after he wandered into a pool while on holiday.
She and her husband bother believed the other was looking after their son.
She said: "In just seven minutes we went from being the happiest family, to a completely broken one.
"Through a miscommunication between myself and Gavin, Loui made his way into the pool alone."
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She said the lessons she teaches are "safer than any other lessons" as they are taught one-to-one.
She added: "Yes, it is true that some parts of the programme the children don’t like at first and they cry, but this is only because it’s something new and out of their comfort zone.
"Don’t kids cry for lots of reasons? It doesn’t necessarily mean there is something wrong.
"They cry when we take them for vaccinations, but we still do it.
"They cry when they are learning to walk or ride a bike and they fall, but we encourage them to get up and try again.
"They cry sometimes when they don’t want to put on their seat belt, so should we say ‘oh okay you don’t need to wear it?’
"No, because we know it’s for their safety."
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