Amy’s Aquatics Swimming Safely
It’s always the right time to teach your children about safety when swimming. You may have seen videos online of tiny babies taking swimming lessons and thought “that’s absolutely insane” while also having a mild heart attack on the parent’s behalf. But if you ask Amy Clayton, owner of Amy’s Aquatics, that’s the perfect time to start teaching your kids how to swim and swim safely. Because of this, Amy has made an unforgettable impact on our local community and on the families whose children she’s taught.
Amy has always had a lifelong love of swimming. As a young child, she participated on the local swim team and it was actually a family affair. “I went on to compete on our high school’s swim team with my siblings and then continued to swim in college at the University of North Texas even though there was no swim team at the school. I ended up taking a swimming laps class,” Amy mentioned.
Upon graduation from UNT, Amy went out into the normal corporate workforce. But her love for swimming never went away, so she went on to participate in and graduate from the American Red Cross Safety Instructor Course. Eventually, Amy found herself leaving the corporate world of work and searching out a way to make her love for the water a way to bring in income.
“After losing my job, my family ended up moving to a new house with a pool,” Amy added. Amy found this as the perfect opportunity to teach her own kids about swimming safety and this soon grew to teach her neighbor’s kids the same lessons. This is where Amy’s Aquatics was truly born.
Just starting out, Amy began with 52 children taking classes. The next year? That number doubled. “It has been the biggest blessing,” Amy said. “I miss the kids when the season is over. This job allows me to give back so much. The proudest moment of my career is when a child comes to class and the parent tells me they hate the water and won’t get wet and the child leaves soaking wet and having had the time of their lives.”
When it comes to working with children, there really is no one better than Amy. While some people tend to find teaching children exhausting and difficult, Amy couldn’t love this more. “I somehow can communicate with kids in a really positive way. I’m fun. I tend to connect with children more than I do with adults. I understand them,” Amy said. It’s because of her love for children that she has dedicated her time to teaching children how to be safe in the water.
In fact, just recently, Amy wrote a children’s water safety book called Matthew’s Lesson Learned. The book is based on a true story that happened to one of her students many years ago. “A little boy fell into a pool and was able to save himself because of the skills he learned at swim lessons,” Amy said. “Later that summer, he came to lessons and he and his mother shared the story with me. I have been telling the story for the past 10 years and I finally decided to put pen to paper and let my students read the story when it’s not swimming season.”
When it comes to enrolling your children in swim lessons, you can start as early as 18 months. There’s no limit to how old you can be to enroll in Amy’s Aquatics, however, most of Amy’s students stop coming to her classes when they become teenagers and join their own competitive swim teams.
“I never saw Amy’s Aquatics turning into all of this. I saw this as an opportunity to help families and to fill my time and it has now grown into more than my wildest dreams,” Amy said. Because of Amy’s desire to share the gift of swimming with everyone who desires, Denton County is one step closer to residents swimming safely.
