LAKE TAHOE, Calif. / Nev. – A North Tahoe mom is bringing survival swimming lessons for young children to the Tahoe region this summer. Kristin Lassonde has been teaching swim for over 25 years and decided to pursue this specialized and rigorous certification when she became pregnant with her son.

“I finally just took the plunge,” she says, and is now teaching her son and as well as other children, from six months to six years old, life-saving basics when it comes to water.

The lessons teach kids the critical skill of floating, a safety position where they can rest and breathe. It’s an important position for infants and toddlers, who are not yet walking well, to learn and maintain until help can reach them.

As children get older, lessons add swimming in stints between floating. This alternation provides a way for them to reach the safety of a step, pool edge or shoreline.

The curriculum, developed by Infant Swimming Resource (ISR), compiles nearly 60 years of research and development to effectively and safely convey the life-saving skills. The program teaches the association between breath control and buoyancy in water.

The association can be taught to anyone, including a baby, Lassonde explains. Despite a verbal communication gap, babies can learn this association through exposure, just like walking or crawling.

“A lot of it is, as an instructor,” Lassonde says, “just being able to pay attention to how they’re responding to things, and setting up the environment to where they can naturally be led towards success.”

Exposure comes through repetition, created with daily 10-minute one-on-one lessons that occur five days a week for six weeks. By the end of each week, a parent and child have had close to an hour of personal and focused lessons.

“The baby keeps experiencing the correct technique and then they naturally end up doing it,” Lassonde explains. “So, over time, eventually they know—’oh, I’m in the water, I do this.'”

Lassonde emphasizes it is repetition of the correct skills that leads to success. Parents and at times, conventional groups lessons, can unknowingly reinforce behaviors that don’t encourage proper floating.

For instance, the use of swim floats can put children in an upright position in water and normalize this vertical standing position. “That’s exactly the drowning position,” Lassonde explains. “They don’t know that they’re learning that. They don’t realize that and it just sets up this potentially more dangerous situation.”

The end of the course involves outfitting children in regular clothes and placing them in water, since the majority of juvenile drowning cases are often children in clothing. Parents witness that even fully clothed, their child can float and be safe in the water.

“It’s really amazing, watching the parents,” Lassonde says, “just the awe.”

Currently, Lassonde is teaching lessons at private pools. For more information, scholarships, or to book lessons, visit ISRTahoe.com.