To think that it is up to me what I do when my child in swimming lesson.

[swimmingmum6]

My children have swimming lessons at a lovely local swim school. The groups are small. Teacher is with 3-4 children in pool, parents poolside but not involved in lesson. I enjoy watching but also chatting to the other parents and answering the odd email so that I don't have to do it when my children are in bed, or when I'm properly with them.

Just had this posted on Facebook page. AIBU to dislike the tone? I'm not glued to my phone, look up and encourage frequently but I am also a working mum who gets little space in the daytime and reserve the right to catch up with a couple of emails while my child is in the pool supervised and learning.

The post reads:
Recently I have noticed a sharp increase in the use of mobile phones and tablets on poolside during our lessons.

Understanding how busy our lives are parents can be, I would like to trial our poolsides as ‘Digital free’ zones.

I would like to give you all permission to step out of your hectic day whilst your child is swimming with us by turning your phone off or onto silent.

It is wonderful to see a child encouraged and supported by their parent/Carer poolside when they have achieved something new or master a skill they have been working on. These shared experiences will create memories of their precious early years.

I am hoping by giving you permission to delay writing that email or text will enable you to relax, focus on quality time with your child and create a closer ** (name of swimschool) Community!

If you have a sibling waiting for their lesson or their brother/sister why not encourage them to watch, pick up additional teaching points or bring a book or homework to do.

Should you have a pressing matter to attend to or need to make an urgent call, please may I ask you to step out of the pool to do this when swimming with us.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this idea, so please do respond to this post with a 👍🏼 or ❤️ or comment below.

With much love and many thanks,
(Name of swimschool teacher)

What do you think?

WOuldn't kill you to do without texting for half an hour.

The OP isn't texting she's answering emails so that once home she doesn't have to ignore her child whilst she answers them. Regardless of that fact if she wanted to spend the 30 minutes texting then why shouldn't she? Her child is in a swimming lesson getting adult input, she's hardly neglecting them by not watching whilst themselves and 3 other children swim lengths.

I would tell them to sod off. Currently typing this whilst Ds1 is having his swim lesson and ds 2 is getting changed ready for his. First time I'm had 5 minutes all day.

I pay for the teacher to teach them because there more qualified than me I bring them fun swimming weekly on Sundays so they can show off how they are doing.

I'm reading this at DS tennis lesson..

Tell the swimming teacher you are paying ‘them’ to have quality time with your child . I used to love being able to switch off for the half an hour my kids were learning to swim .

Sanctimonious, patronising and way-overstepping. Who do they think they are? They don't get to 'give me permission' to do anything.

Also ridiculous, properly ridiculous, use of current parent-shaming discourse. 'Memories of their precious early years' while they bob around in a pool several feet away

I'd say she is overstepping the mark somewhat. I would be pretty irratated by this.
She's a swimming teacher so really her main role is to teach the children to swim.
What parents do or don't choose to do whilst waiting for the lessons to finish is really not her business as long as no one is behaving inappropriately.
I've been going to swimming lessons with my children for 9 years now. My youngest is 8 and will need at least another 2 or 3 years of lessons so I will have clocked up over a decade of pool side time.
I do watch some of the lesson and give her the thumbs up at appropriate intervals (although she never notices because she's busy swimming, not actually watching what I'm doing). The rest of the time I chat or do stuff on my phone. As an adult, I think the choice of what I do is mine.

I’d reply that it’s none of her business what you do whilst you’re paying for your child to have swimming lessons.

I think it's none of their business what you do during that time! Emails can be important, I'm currently at uni but used to work at a law firm and any email regarding documents or that needed forwarding needed to be sorted asap no matter what time of day it was or I'd get a bollocking! Even now I use my iPad to complete assignments when my son's busy at his clubs, like you say so the time we're actually together I can fully be there with him and not thinking/worrying about that.

Ours has it but for the sake of having no recording devices poolside.

It's a safeguarding issue really if parents have phones out. What's to stop parents taking photos of kids. It's all fine when it's your child but when you have a group of kids in swimwear and some eejit shares it on Facebook then it's an issue.

My daughter does gymnastics and we are not allowed phones in the area where they do the gymnastics.

We've had a couple of issues of men coming into the shared areas and filming the kids, so now it's a poolside "no recording devices" ban for everyone.

The tone is wanky though!

Yuk. So patronising and holier than thou. I don’t think it’s helpful for parents to try and participate, and I don’t know how much cheering on they need in a weekly swimming lesson. It’s hardly the Olympic finals.

I actually don’t see what right they have to enforce this ban. You are paying for them to teach your child and should be able to spend that half hour doing what you want. I wouldn’t like this at all.

It's a safeguarding issue really if parents have phones out.

If it was a safeguarding issue why not say this? Why spout crap about making memories and quality time with your child.

Fuck that. They’re not the boss of you.

The half an hour while my child is swimming is the only time I get during the week to book the school dinners, look at the class Dojo and do the online shop.

I’d write an email back telling her how she can spend her free time. Maybe she’d like to get in the moment by doing my shop for me, or answering my emails in her time ‘off’?

She obviously has no idea what it’s like to be a busy parent.

I would like to give you all permission to step out of your hectic day whilst your child is swimming with us by turning your phone off or onto silent.

I don't know how anyone can say this isn't patronising. The idea that I, an adult, need a swimming teachers "permission" to turn my phone off/onto silent is ridiculous. If I want to "step out of my hectic day" then I'll do so at a time that is convenient for me and because I've chosen to. If they want to ban phones/devices then fine, that's up to them. But just say you're banning them, don't insult parents intelligence by trying to claim that you're doing it as some sort of favour to them, because obviously their child's swimming teacher is the best person to advise on their well-being

yes, if it is a safeguarding issue then perfectly reasonable. That is not what the email said.

I would be very annoyed if that had been directed at me. Like a pp I studied for an MA during swimming lessons, I got a lot of reading done. But if I was glued to facebook that would have been fine too, how interesting IS watching your child and several others having a lesson anyway? I always watched a bit of it.

If the kids are looking up at their parents all the time then they're not concentrating on their lesson! Mine couldn't even see me when they had their lessons because I sat up on the balcony. So annoying when some parents used to shoot their kids all the time! Just leave them to it, you're paying the teacher to teach them!

I swim whilst my 5yo has his lesson. Swimming lessons are for learning to swim not for making memories".

It’s patronising and enabling helicopter parenting, which is harmful to children’s mental health.

I honestly couldn't get worked up about it.

The first thing that email reminded me of was those wedding invitations which say "our gift to you is permission to take a rare chance to really enjoy yourself let your hair down at our inaccessible venue necessitating an overnight stay, so much as we'd rather your children see us get married, we care about you so much we're not inviting them - for your sake, we're really going to miss them!"

Just say no children, it's fine. Don't say we're giving you permission to take time out from your children as a favour.

In the same way just say no phones poolside please. Don't pretend you're granting customers a favour or helping them parent!