MIDLAND, Texas — In Jessica McCoy's backyard, she's been holding swim lessons with the program she started in 2018, Head Above Water Midland. “I created Head Above Water Midland when I had my son in 2018. I swam in college at SMU and I wanted to create something I knew my friends would love.”
She's been the main instructor teaching kids as early as 18 months old, how to swim and teaching parents water safety.
"I hope to give parents the resources to help their children learn to swim in a way that is collaborative with me and them or even just giving parents questions to ask their swim instructor, maybe they can have resources. If they see their child crying. that parent can say 'okay I see how can I help my child be comfortable with being uncomfortable," says McCoy.
However since the start of the pandemic, young children have started to be behind when it comes to their development and motor skills, something that even McCoy has noticed. "We’ve seen such a decrease in children’s physical and emotional ability to perform developmental milestones that it’s effecting what we're having them do in swim lessons," she goes on to say, "it’s starts to get dangerous and reckless if we are teaching children who do not have the physical capability or the mental capability to perform some of the things we are asking them to perform," she says.
McCoy does in fact recognize these delays and is making sure to go the extra mile when her students splash into the pool. By setting goals with parents and their children and talking about anything she's noticed in their lesson.
"Just initiating the conversation about your child's mental health when it comes to swim lessons is honestly the first step."
So for the months that her clients are with her, she's making sure at the end of their course they're walking away with more than just a swim lesson, but lessons to care them through life.
"I think a lot of parents like that they don't have to parent when they're here. They can trust me that I'm going to handle the situation if their child is frustrated or crying. I think that they makes people comfortable if you see them and give them the opportunity to let them just be human and I want children to know it's okay to have big feelings about stuff that's scary. I created this because I want to put something out in the world I want for my kids," says McCoy.