I'd sincerely like to warn parents in the Mitcham area off of subjecting their children to the Dolphin Swim Academy. Our DD still talks about a traumatic incident there from a year ago.
We didn't know until we switched to the Better leisure centre that swimming lessons didn't have to be accompanied by the constant sound of scared children's tears, like they were at Dolphin's dingy industrial estate building.
One of the teachers was great and our DD said he made her feel brave. But another one was forcing kids to go underwater, one by one, while they were pleading not to. Their little legs were dangling into the pool that was not quite a pool, more like a giant bathtub someone had installed in a warehouse.
I had told this teacher my daughter had a fear of going underwater. He acted like my concerns were ridiculous.
One day I could hear this man telling the crying children, "we do this every week, until the tears stop!" My daughter was looking out at me pleading, "daddy!"
I lost it.
Full disclosure that I'm banned from the place after losing my temper and yelling abusive language at this man. I realize I've become one of those people the signs on buses warn about, shouting at workers when they're just trying to do their job. And I feel bad about it.
It's just had never seen my child treated by anyone like our DD was as at Dolphin, and needed to learn some anger management.
Dolphin Swim Academy has provided a good conversation starter for discussions with my DD about emotions. And the best ways to act on them (like not shouting at a swim teacher who is disregarding kids' feelings about what he should go do with himself). And whether this swim teacher might have been told when he was a child himself that his feelings of being scared didn't matter.
As much as I prefer to support a small independent business than a slick Better Center with an annoying app entry system, the children at Better's swim school are SO much happier.