IRON MOUNTAIN -- The Upper Peninsula's hot and humid summer months have many locals heading to the lakeshores to cool off. In an area swimming in lakes and rivers, teaching kids how to swim could be a lifesaving lesson.
“People love to swim in this area,” says Northern Lights YMCA Aquatics Coordinator, Chris Cavalieri. “I consider it an essential skill to have if you're going to live in the U.P.”
Cavalieri says learning how to swim isn’t a luxury, it's a necessity, and the younger the better. The YMCA starts kids as young as six months old.
“It's important that, at a very young age, kids start to learn the basics of water safety, basic swim strokes, and not being afraid to submerge their mouth and nose underwater,” Cavalieri says.
One of the major things instructors teach kids is how to overcome their fear of being fully submerged under the water. The way they teach this is by getting kids to jump in the pool.
“You want to make sure that when they're jumping off a deck or a dock that they actually know how to take care of themselves,” said Kelsey Moore, parent of two.
Moore says the time and money is well spent. Now she can keep her cool when her two children enter the water.
“It’s a very reasonable expense to pay for a lifetime,” Moore says. “It’s a skill that they're always going to have.”
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