Manassas Park Community Matters Blog Post - Power of Consistency – By Sarah Barnett

In the last few weeks, we have talked a lot about “Consistency” in some of our meetings here at the Department of Parks and Recreation.  It can be tough in the summer, to get all of our seasonal employee’s on the same page as far as rule enforcement, talking to customers, proper uniform, etc.  However, we value consistency, and feel that it gives our customer’s a better experience and helps to define the employees expectations.  This process is a consistent attempt to have consistency!!!  It is a never-ending process.  But we feel, that in the long run, everyone benefits.  There are many examples of how consistency leads to a better experience, but I didn’t quite realize how much an impact this could have on learning to swim.

We recently purchased a new house, with an in-ground pool in the backyard.  My husband and I both have a heavy background in aquatics, so purchasing a home with a pool wasn’t such a daunting idea.  Our biggest concern was the safety of our 3 girls.  Our oldest is 9, and she can swim pretty well.  However, our 2 and 4 year olds did not know how to swim.  This may be hard to believe, since both my husband and I have worked as swim instructors.  In our defense, when we left work at the end of the day, the last thing we wanted to do was COME BACK to work to put our kids in swim lessons.  We put them in a few sessions here and there when we had time, but it was never consistent.  Therefore they weren’t able to reinforce their skills or gain any confidence.  However, we moved into our new house about a month ago, and we have spent just about every evening, and all weekend in the pool.  The 2 little girls went from wearing life jackets while being carried around in the pool by us, to wearing arm floats and swimming around by themselves (within arm’s reach of us, of course) to now being able to swim around the pool with no flotation device.  They accomplished this in about 1 week of consistent swim time.  We didn’t give any formal lessons, just gave them tips as we played in the pool.  It is my belief that they learned so quickly because they were consistently in the pool reinforcing their skills and gaining confidence.  Obviously this helps ease safety concerns, but it also makes us so proud of them.  They insist on showing everyone who comes over (even the pizza guy) their “doggie paddle”.  Hopefully, with a few more consistent weeks of swimming, we can refine their technique a bit, in order to make them more efficient swimmers. In the meantime, their current technique is good enough, and huge progress!  We don’t expect them to be little “Michael Phelps”.

If you are looking to enroll your child in a consistent swim program, try our 4 day a week lessons!  While it might seem like a big time commitment, bringing your child for lessons for an hour, Monday through Thursday for 2 weeks, it could be the consistency that your child needs to really grasp the skill of swimming!

Sarah Barnett is Aquatics Supervisor for the Manassas Park Parks and Recreation Department. She can be reached at 703.335.8872 x3672 or via email at s.barnett@manassasparkva.gov.

Community Matters is a blog created by the City of Manassas Park Department of Parks and Recreation. The blog features program updates, announcements of new services, special event notices, or information of general interest.