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?

It means a lot to a child that they have your attention.

They shouldn't be even remotely aware of whether they have their parents attention, their attention should be directed towards the teacher who is delivering the lesson.

Yabu. When mine were having swimming lessons they quite often looked up to see if I was watching them. It was obviously important to them that I was watching their progress.
It’s half an hour.

At my children's previous pool phones and tablets were strictly banned from the poolside (for safeguarding purposes). In theory they're banned from the viewing areas at the leisure centre where my children now have their lessons, but most parents ignore this and the staff either don't care or don't have time to police it.

I used to read my book and look up often to see what they were doing, as a not insignificant percentage of the lesson is spent holding onto the side not doing any swimming.

I like the idea but not the way it's written. To be honest though I remember looking up in my gymnastics lessons to see my mum was on her blackberry sending emails, all the time. I used to say she lover her phone more than me (I think I believed it too)

If they'd just said it's safeguarding then I'd say suck it up and bring a paperback but this is ridiculous

She shot herself in the foot tbh with the insta mummy making memories every minute counts bullshit. Signing off with much love just adds to how unprofessional and ridiculous this is .
Safeguarding I take seriously, "making memories" with much love can fuck off.

God its like we have to have eyes glued on children 24/7. The world doesn't revolve around them all day long and they need to realise that.

I agree with them. I don't think phones or laptops should be allowed at the poolside.

Will you be passing the feedback to swim teacher J

Good grief that email is hilariously patronizing!

All that 'I give you permission' stuff makes my teeth itch.

At my dds swim classes, no one was allowed on their phones. It was actually quite boring sitting there. No proper seating either, so sat on dds towels
I like getting my phone out and catching up with life. I work full time as well as dh, there aren’t enough hours in the day for us.
I’m with you op.

I would be very annoyed with this. Her job is to teach the kids to swim not to police what the parents are doing. The message is patronising and judgemental. Kids swimming lessons are monumentally boring and I can't think of anything worse than parents starting to get involved with fake well done, loud parenting from the sides. I would be sending a polite response explaining that the time is useful to catch up with personal admin and that you prefer to use the time in this way. Finish up with a 'I am sure the swim school instructors would prefer to spend their time focusing on the children rather than on what the parents may or may not be doing during the short lesson.

Please take a notebook and pen and very ostentatiously make note throughout the half hour.

Then go and speak to the teacher about the shared experience.

I would comment on the post telling the teacher they are being judgemental and patronising. My child is there to learn and I catch up on emails to give them my attention when they come out of lesson. (I might check there was another provider in the area first though!)

I like the idea of no phones but “we give you permission” uh what? Why do you need their permission? That would annoy me too. Good idea but bad execution

Can't see why parents need to be next to the swimming pool at all, to be honest. I would have hated to have my parents watch me while I was learning.

Incredibly patronising email, yes.

This is awfully worded. And to be honest would annoy me too. I use swimming lessons to do work emails so that I have phone free time when doing something with them. It’s not for them to judge. I would understand more if they said no phones to prevent photos etc but not to say what you can or cannot do. Why is reading or school work any better?

This would annoy me. I've spent the last 5 years waiting while my kids having swimming lessons. In that time I've done lots of things, work , reading , listening to podcasts the list is endless. My kids do not care if I'm not watching every single stroke they do. I'm present enough to give them a thumbs up or a point to the teacher when they are not paying attention so I would find this incredibly patronising.

Urgh. Especially all those martyrs on this post saying ‘it’s only 30mins’. Yeah, and what about the other 13 hours that go around those 30mins where you have to be full on focused on your kids. I agree that they don’t need helicopter parenting during the few rare moments where you’re paying someone else to look after them. I’d not come in after that message and go chill with my phone outside.

I agree with them. I don't think phones or laptops should be allowed at the poolside.

Why? When my daughter does her club I keep half an eye on her and half an eye on my emails. After her club, I spend time with her 1-2-1. We read together, go for walks together, play. All without tablets and mobiles. So why does someone get to judge when I should give her my full attention? Because that's what it is - a judgement and an assumption that I'm not giving my child any of my time.

The swimming teacher is out of order. If it was for safeguarding then fine but it doesn't appear to be for that.

I hope there is somewhere else to sit, and that you don't have to be stuck at the side of the pool watching. A child's swimming lesson really isn't that interesting, and its not really 'quality family time' when you're sat a distance away and they should be focused on watching and listening to their teacher.

TBH when dd was of that age and having lessons, I would much rather sit in the cafe and finish some work. I could then enjoy 'quality time' with my own child afterwards rather than having to work then, rather than when they were being supervised by someone else, who I was paying to do so!

So patronising.

Safeguarding normally prohibits it.

Which is fair enough, and that is what they should have said. Not the patronising and judgemental rubbish on the post.

Well clearly they're wanting your input. Start shouting instructions to your child over the teacher. Get involved! Don't just sit there watching your child swim from one side of the pool to the other (a thrilling experience for you!)

Personally I sit in the car and catch up on Netflix. Tell them to piss off.

This is why I chose a swim school with a cafe. It's on the same site as a library. God I love that half-hour with coffee and a paper. I don't make DD watch my stuff either. Seems fair.

We weren't allowed poolside when my children had lessons - we could watch from behind glass in the cafe area in the more spectacular friendly pool but in lessons which took place in a local school pool the only place to watch from was standing up behind glass doors, and another swim school used a warm therapy pool from which there was nowhere to watch at all - the teacher had assistants so there were plenty of adults and parents had to wait in the changing room or reception or leave completely except for 5 minutes at the end when we could watch progress (standing up poolside) then collect our own child to shower etc

Never taken them to any lessons which encouraged parents to watch.

From a child's point of view I agree with the instructor.
They have probably witnessed one too many disappointed little faces look at dp after achieving something only to see said dp has completely missed it because they chose to look at their phone instead.