Stay Playful w/Lukas Ritson

What does play have to do with aquatics? More than you might think.

In this episode of Aquatics Only, Luke Daly sits down with Lukas Ritson from Wearthy to unpack why play, confidence, challenge and connection matter so deeply in a child’s development and why that should matter to every swim school, aquatic facility and industry leader.

Lukas, known for his work around the ecology of play, brings a fresh but highly relevant perspective to the aquatics space. Together, Luke and Lukas explore the role our industry plays in the wider childhood experience, from building competence and confidence, to helping children regulate, connect and grow.

They also tackle some big questions:

• Why structured outcomes can sometimes get in the way of real learning
• How swim schools can better communicate the value of play to parents
• Why relationships and environment matter just as much as program design
• What leaders can do to create more welcoming, child-centred aquatic spaces
• How to recognise progress beyond just strokes, skills and levels

This is a thoughtful, practical conversation for anyone working in swim schools, aquatic education, leisure facilities or child-focused environments.

If you care about child development, water safety, and creating experiences that genuinely help kids thrive, this one is worth your time.

Connect with Lukas Ritson:

LinkedIn: Lukas Ritson

Podcast: Play It Forward

Website: Wearthy.co

Thanks for listening to Aquatics Only. If you’re in swim schools, aquatic facilities, lifeguarding, learn-to-swim, programs, products, or anything water safety related, you’re in the right place.

Subscribe so you don’t miss an episode, and if this one was useful, share it with someone in the industry.

Want to get involved or have a guest/topic suggestion? Reach out: aquaticsonlypod@gmail.com

Transcript

Luke Daly (00:50.486)
Welcome back to the Aquatics Only podcast. We have a special guest. You're not going to be used to this because we've had a couple of UK guests on with our guests recently. This time we are back in Australia. We have someone who I met last year and was really quite taken. I'm hard to impress when it comes to speakers and people that we get to listen to or hear from and chatting with our guest last year. I was like, Whoa, this guy's a legend.

Then I looked into him a bit further, got to meet him, got to chat to him. And for those of you who were at Spark Conference in 2025, you would have heard from him. I think it's a really important topic. Hence they're joining us on the podcast today, but I'd like to welcome Mr. Lukas Ritson from Worthy today. Welcome along, Lukas.

Lukas Ritson (01:36.078)
Thanks, Luke. Thanks for having me. And thanks for the opportunity to speak at the Spark Conference. I had a few people message and follow up that were really appreciative. So it's a beautiful community.

Luke Daly (01:38.037)
Appreciate you.

Luke Daly (01:48.436)
It is a beautiful community. And we were very grateful for having you there. Even if I, if I recall correctly, you were going to do something to me or play a trick on me, but I ran off the stage too fast and you didn't get the chance. now for those of you who don't know Lukas, primarily we met around a thing called the ecology of play, which was a Ted X talk that you did. and I was, like I said, quite enamored by that whole speech. And then you came in and delivered it at conference for those of

the listeners at home basically sitting back thinking you've got a green shirt on, right? So your team green primarily we're team blue as aquatics Uh, so there's probably a lot of people out there going, well, what the heck does it have? Uh, how is it relevant to the aquatics industry? So before we get stuck into that specifically, can you give me in 60 seconds, uh, also, uh, what is the ecology of play from your perspective?

Lukas Ritson (02:43.11)
It's an accountability tool when we're considering childhood development. So inspired by Yuri Bronfrenbrenner, famous theorist, came up with the ecological theory around ecological development and having the child at the middle of that ecosystem and the patterns of things that move around them. Now, as a playground designer, environmental designer and educator,

I went on this quest to try to understand environments. And when I first got into the sector around education, working with children, was like, hey, these guys have such a removed experience from what I have. Why are children nervous about walking on the grass with no shoes? Why are they scared of being challenged? It was just out of this world. And then when you zoom out and you consider the whole childhood experience, it's like no other in history. Children have never been so

overstimulated yet underdeveloped. And from an environment designer standpoint with the background in permaculture closed system design, I just went and delve deep into, how do we create environments for children to thrive? Just like seeds need certain ingredients to thrive and certain environments to thrive, so do our children. The environment of thrive or traditional has been our neighborhood, the block behind our house.

the trust from our parents to be able to explore and experience and get things wrong. Now fast forward to now, the stuff in the backyard is not happening. That trust in our children's capability and competency has reduced our fear of risk in child safety has increased. So zooming out, like how do we get all of that into an environment and support the all children to thrive? So focusing on it.

diversity of opportunity within experiences and exposure for children to meet all children's needs and then looking at the wider community and cultural influences that we can extend on their physical experience from social ones. A lot of the time when we talk about environment, we don't consider people as environment. And that's the center of the childhood experience. They're unique, they need.

Luke Daly (05:03.382)
Interesting.

Lukas Ritson (05:08.554)
certain environments to thrive. And I'm proud to call myself a childhood advocate. And we've got a business that is design, construct and consult on playgrounds, but we're kind of camouflaged as designers and construction industry, because we're just advocates at the end of the day.

Luke Daly (05:28.182)
That's right. But I think you've kind of explained it very clearly. And I love that. Yes. Where the construction, where the building, we build playgrounds, but we're layering it in with a way bigger thought process behind it. and I think that's really cool. And. Listen to the podcast and you know, as well, Lukas, cause we've talked, but I have two sons. And so when I go to these playgrounds and, see them be able to explore things, be able to touch grass, which is kind of a, an insult these days in adulthood, but it's such a relevant thing. And you've talked about it there.

And I think it's Jordan Peterson that says we need to encourage our kids to do dangerous things safely. so we obviously don't want to harm our kids, but we do need to put them environments where they do get to experience that as well. Quick one on this just while we warm up here is why do you think your message resonated so well at spark? Not that you said it resonated well. My feedback says that it resonated well, but from your perspective, that the Brown and the green coming together with the blue.

of Aquatics, why do you think that message translated so easily, I guess you'd say, to our industry?

Lukas Ritson (06:36.078)
The aquatic sector when it comes to lessons, recreational sport.

in general, occupy some really prime real estate from a childhood experience. If you think of school, if you think of transit time, you're getting children for like, if you consider a child is at school, they sleep 10 hours, the transit time is taken out, you then consider they've got four hours of contact time with the family to eat, sleep, bath, all of that. You guys get an hour or so of that. So you're at the coalface of these

this like prime real estate. And I think people are involved in this sector because of their care. They're not doing it for the money because in my earlier days, I was a swim teacher as well. And I was a pool plan operator and then I went and did laboring to get the kitty up. So it's not in it for the money, I think as a community, we acknowledge there's a disconnect around the current childhood experience. It reminds me of the Maasai.

stay with me, that when they meet as a tribe, they don't ask, are you? They ask, how are the children? Because how the children are going is a better indicator of success of the overall community than the individual leading it. And I think we have this innate observation to see the current childhood experience and be like,

There's something at disconnect here. Something seems off. And with the coming of age of screens being such an integrated part, the cost of living, smaller backyards, less freedom, like in this storm. And then we're seeing the impact on children. We're seeing...

Lukas Ritson (08:36.716)
record levels of diagnosis of anxiety and depression in young children. The fact that we're having to, we've got data whatsoever on self-harm in eight year olds. I think we, it doesn't matter what sector you're involved with, if you're really honest with yourself, a lot of children in our communities aren't doing well. And you're seeing the stress from the families, you're seeing the stress on the children, you're seeing the dysregulation. And I think,

when you put it in a very ecological framework, practical sense, people can go, that makes sense. A guy I know, says, resonance is the moment that your head realizes what your heart knows to be true.

Luke Daly (09:24.588)
Good.

Lukas Ritson (09:25.548)
And when you see a deficit of experience that children are having, like they're not developing grip strength because they're not hanging off anything, they're not developing core strength, and we're seeing the ramifications of this lack of development, lack of inquiry, lack of exploration, it's having an impact on our whole communities.

Luke Daly (09:44.53)
fundamentally agree. And I think we're seeing that manifest in a bunch of different ways as well. Echoing what you just said around the fact that there is data that refers to self harm and eight year olds is abhorrent. And I've always said to like, even with my own kids, or just generally seeing the fact that a 10 year old knows what the word stress means or feels stress. It shouldn't be that way. Life doesn't need to be that complex. And mostly my grievances around homework, causing stress and taking up like you said,

I don't think I've thought about it in that context of we get four hours basically of time a day where we're not sleeping or educating or anything like that. So not really. I've already fronted.

Lukas Ritson (10:20.366)
You wanna hear the frightening part?

If you have an average of four to 4.5 hours a day, an average transit time to school and care is half an hour, so you go back to four hours. The average screen time for a child of kindergarten age, and it progressively increases, is 2.5 hours a day in Australia. So you've actually got an hour and a half to two hours with your child.

Luke Daly (10:43.81)
You're right. That is terrifying. Yeah, you're right.

Luke Daly (10:51.426)
And that is terrifying. And I think in the aquatics industry or the just the broader leisure industry, I think that's where we do play a really important role. it's, so we can deal with the learner swim. can deal with the leisure and aquatic facilities as well. And we can also just deal with the, home, let's call them home pools or backyard pools, but they're all downstream of being able to swim and experience. And we typically learn in swim schools and leisure facilities. One of my old bosses, when I worked for a different association,

Lukas Ritson (11:00.514)
Absolutely.

Lukas Ritson (11:10.883)
Yes.

Lukas Ritson (11:16.106)
Yeah.

Luke Daly (11:20.994)
He would say it's very difficult to bomb dive. So it's very difficult to play a computer game while bomb diving your sibling. and I think that's the succinct way of putting the impact that we do. I think if we talk about regulation, I'm not a child development expert, although I am learning lots and lots about it from a sensory perspective, from a community perspective, from a skills perspective, from a safety perspective, and from a sports perspective, swimming, let's just put the banner over swimming.

plays such an important role in A, development, B, just societal. Like they're third places where people can go to. And for me, that's something that the aquatics industry does really, really well. I'm keen to understand you're an insider, outsider, almost in some ways to this industry. You're tangential from the green shirt perspective. And you, like you said, you've highlighted, you were a, you were a pool plan operator. Thank you for that. And you were a swim teacher. And then you had to top the kitty out with.

layering money. So I think there's a lot of people that would resonate. where they connect their heart with their head with that as well. I want to understand one thing where I don't want to just focus on the negative. So give me something around how we, we get in our way unintentionally when we fall into the rhythm as swim teachers or as lifeguards, even if we just go poolside for a second, where do we unintentionally get it in our own way? when it comes to helping kids or let's just go broader society for a second, why not?

when it comes to confidence and capability along with learning. What do do poorly?

Lukas Ritson (12:54.03)
Competence builds confidence and yet we tend to micromanage, focus on the outcome, give lots of direction that doesn't give the child that agency of like, of actually self-selected something and achieved it, which gives them the reward, not you. In short, however, to speak to optimistic points, I think culturally in Australia, we're so blessed to really value swimming.

It is... you think about it.

Swimming's could be quite hazardous, unsupervised lack of competency, you we've got pool fencing rules for a reason. However, the relaxed nature of Australians when it comes to swimming, we put a fire pit in a playground. It was on every news network in Australia, interviewing people, childcare put a fire pit in, what do you think of that? Meanwhile, it was like heat proof on the outside.

It was like a big parameter. We did scalable levels of experience to get there. However, like, oh, that's a disgrace. They shouldn't do that. That's so dangerous. On the weekend, we're more than comfortable as a society to take our kids to the beach and not swim between the flags.

Luke Daly (14:19.296)
or let them go on YouTube unsupervised.

Lukas Ritson (14:22.558)
Yes, absolutely and we're bringing that hazard in to our house as a reflex of protection. However, I think that's why I love what the swim sectors doing in the real estate they hold and the intent is because swimming is such a fantastic from a physiological standpoint to move your bodies and to burn off stress. Fantastic. Just the other day, my daughter had a really, really hard day being 12.

socially complex situations. There was miscommunication around the pick-up spot. So she's getting heightened, heightened, Her safe person, my wife gets there to school, picks her up.

fault she was like what did I do went to swimming at Somerset there she did a little squat she came out without any repercussions or boundaries she just said I'm really sorry about the way I spoke to you that wasn't fair she's used her environment the physiology for the psychology piece it's helped her regulate it's helped to burn off the stress in the body

Luke Daly (15:23.733)
awesome.

Lukas Ritson (15:34.882)
Instead of operating in a tent, she's moved to a six. Like, that's the type of impact it has on swimming. And from a backyard standpoint, how many open-ended, like non-outcome focused activities do children actually engage with now? Because for the listeners that aren't familiar, play is about the process and we get satisfaction on the process, not the outcome.

So how many other activities can you think of at the top of your head that a child's doing just for the sake of enjoyment without an outcome these days?

Luke Daly (16:11.892)
Not many, which is why I have a question on that. In fact, it's around that guided play versus free play. And where's the sweet spot? Cause it changes across ages and stages and confidence levels. As you've said, competence informs confidence. although I think my one year old son at the time, he had way more confidence and competence at that point in time. but is there, do you see that changing? Have you charted that or looked into that at all as the ages change, guided versus free and.

Lukas Ritson (16:21.859)
Yes.

Luke Daly (16:41.3)
even in our context of swim schools, but more generally as well.

Lukas Ritson (16:43.266)
Yeah. Yeah. So you can look at the developmental stages based on play types that children will naturally gravitate towards. When you're looking at babies and toddlers and you swim lessons, what are you doing? It's like face to face. It's you're in the level, trying not to just skim them across the water from behind and just be like, where are we going? You want to be, because the social interaction and the attunement play of,

I'm moving, that's me. Where do I finish and the environment around me begin? That's water, it's social, it's secure attachment and safety, it's nurture. That's what the focus for the babies is. As you move into toddlers, they're moving into here's my body, where does that start, finish, but then looking at more objects. So it's object play and then that moves into social play. That's when you get like toddlers walk up to another child and just look a bit inquisitive.

and then slap the child on the head and you're like, don't do that. All they're doing is they're treating that social situation like an object. They're like, what does this do? Ooh, it does that. So it's a common one we see. And then as you move into the more pre-kindy and primary, to go back to the toddlers, the other thing they do, there's research on this from the 70s. If you set up 13 elements of play,

for a toddler, they hit all 13. But it's all very surface level. It's how does this feel? How does this touch? How does this body position feel when I move my body across that center line? It's all very surface level. And of course the taste, wonder what this is, straight in the mouth. You're like, not the mulch. Drink in the water, why?

Luke Daly (18:29.557)
You

Lukas Ritson (18:37.422)
So it's all very surface and then they would hit all 13 elements as they pinball around. If you set up 13, they're doing 13. You move to the older group, you set up 13 elements, they hit three or four because they're looking for complexity. They're moving on this surface level and it's not just about the blocks and how it feels anymore, but it's how's this block and how's it balanced and how's this interact.

the shelf and the water and the water and the shelf and the shelf and me and the shelf and the water and that's socially complex and we call that the toddlers are the traveler and the older children tend to be the prospectors. They're looking for complexity of movement. So to go back to your question around structured and unstructured, you heavily determined by that child's stage of development and that child's interests.

And that's where understanding the child from a relationship standpoint with their parent, connecting with their parent, connect with their parent, they're feeling safe and secure, they're more likely to explore and be challenged. So it's this friction we sit in around allowing those children that get satisfaction out of that non-structure, versus children that are looking and searching for complexity and operating to a clear parameter can add.

city.

Luke Daly (20:06.423)
Good.

Lukas Ritson (20:07.244)
So a structured lesson.

Luke Daly (20:09.142)
Let's keep parents, you've brought parents up now, which is often.

tough conversation in our space with that as well. To articulate that it's well documented here in our industry, water safety is obviously a big component of the aquatics world and more specifically the swim school world. I have a particular aquatics conversation coming up after this one, but this one regarding parents, water safety weeks or water safety days, if we market them and tell families at the end of the day that we're going to be doing those, they're the lowest attended.

because they're not regarded as progress. So how can teachers with parents get play to read as progress, not as wasted time. So if that came across correctly, people don't perceive those water safety classes as progress. They just view it as play and therefore a waste of time. We're not going to go, which is a real shame because they are play-based water safety sessions most of the time. I got to hop in a boat the other day and fall out of it on purpose to be rescued by eight

10 year olds. So it took eight of them, but that's fine. They got me back in the boat. But how do we do that with parents? we, they still place the priority, even if they haven't seen, you know, little Johnny do his big arms that day, but he's been able to play something to get down on the ground, which they love to do. And it's kept them engaged. How do we, what language can we use? Do you have any tips for us so that play reads as progress?

Lukas Ritson (21:36.842)
to serve a question back at you if I may, why are your families there?

Luke Daly (21:44.406)
Primarily to learn to swim would be, there's, there would be a toggle. It's a good question, but primarily to be able to learn to swim is why they would be at the swimming lesson. The outcome is water safety in my view of the world, but being there to learn to swim helps with the water safety element.

Lukas Ritson (22:03.028)
and their perception of what learning to swim looks like from a community visual standpoint looks like what.

Luke Daly (22:11.862)
Great question. I don't actually have an answer to that because I don't think we know as parents.

Lukas Ritson (22:15.631)
So I think when you're signing up for My Perception and it's very novice in your field.

dip to toe in.

Luke Daly (22:25.098)
And clearly I'm more novice given that I can't answer the question. So bring it on.

Lukas Ritson (22:27.692)
No, well, I think when you think of water safety and swim lessons, you think of very structured things. You think of like, I'm going here, they're going to do this, there's going to be a process, you know, and a lot of time.

just from societal norms, and this is that outer system of ecology, from societal norms, we think production and everything regimented means it's quality. And unstructured and un-outcome focus is not quality. It's all crunchy and it's airy-fairy.

So when it comes, you want to look at those bigger.

perceptions of community. It's like when you talk about risk and risky play or swim safety. Remember back in the day there was like drown, drown proofing? Well you're not that old.

Luke Daly (23:23.542)
Yes, no, I've seen it. I've seen it.

Lukas Ritson (23:27.298)
Yeah, we're doing drown proofing lessons. And the parents are like, sign me up. They're gonna be drown proofing. You're like, well, kinda. So that's where they swung the other way and tried to be like, what do parents want? They don't want their kids to drown. We'll tell them we're making them not drown.

Luke Daly (23:35.266)
Thank you.

Lukas Ritson (23:43.15)
So we've swung the pendulum this way and then it swings back the other way and says, quality looks like an outcome and we're gonna put them in lessons and they're gonna learn. And when from a, once again, societal standpoint, what does learning look like? You have a teacher and they do instructions and it's the factory model of education and its outcome. So.

Luke Daly (24:05.75)
And the way that the way that I hear what you're saying is that quality looks like a as opposed to something that's not linear whatsoever and not process driven. Funny story. to interject on what you're saying. I think it might even connect in with what you're saying is, is one way to look at it. Went to one of the swim schools recently and I don't think that mind me talking about, but they've reversed their process for their swimming lesson. And they do that once a, once a month.

Lukas Ritson (24:11.042)
Yes.

Lukas Ritson (24:21.443)
Yeah.

Luke Daly (24:32.778)
So they'll flip the lesson on its head, because you're right, everything is processed. They come in, they dangle their toes, depending on the level, and they run that process and they finish with a bit of fun. With these lessons, they reverse it. And so they do it just completely reverse. And it screws with the teacher's heads. So they're more engaged because they have to think more. It's not just production. It's not just process. They've got to reverse it. It's like saying the alphabet backwards. But the kids also, it's not monotonous for them either at that point. it just apparently is going really, really well for them.

And it kind of makes logical sense based on this conversation too.

Lukas Ritson (25:04.066)
Yeah. Yeah. Novelty gets, demands our attention. Right? Like that doesn't make sense. Let me work it out. And you know, the whole classic thing of time progresses faster as we get older because we just go on so much of an autopilot and it's the same in our lessons. You just go on this autopilot. You're not thinking, you're not being present. And what was I saying about the satisfaction of play happens in the process, not the outcome

And when we just automated, we're like, cool, the end point is a lesson, get the next kids in. So it was like reading your questions earlier, you're like, what's one of the things that a swim school could do? I was gonna say, switch up. And children love that awe and wonder and novelty. They're like, all right, you got my attention now. Because you're meeting the child in the process, not the outcome. To summarize what you're saying earlier about how do you market it better to families, meet them where they're at.

What do they want? They want outcomes. So you market it as outcomes. Like for working in the play sector, if I said we're going to have a play day, parents are like, yeah, cool. The weight they put on play is very low because there's so many other things to worry about and plays to something for kids and it's frivolous and there's no real benefit, really. But if I say we're doing a maker station,

Right? A creation station. We've got a shipping container that we ship around and it's all those parts. It's like, like all the stuff you collect from the dump. The children go there and just create their own stuff. If I might come to this play session, they're like, cool. If I come to like, this is a creation station. It's about STEM. It's about science. You have to add the reasoning to add the value to the family. So in the context of swim safety, I'll be like,

we are learning about this very specific thing. Does it mean you have to deliver it in a very specific way? No, because you front loaded the value and the messaging upfront. Another example you're probably familiar with as a society, we say the word risk is something to be avoided. But from a play standpoint, risk is something that is innately important for play because when you learn to mitigate and manage risk and understand what

Lukas Ritson (27:33.612)
as it is and a risk, you then develop an internal barometer on what is safe for you and what is not. However, when we say it from a community standpoint and we say, we did risky play, they're like, you put my child at risk today. That's what I'm hearing. Opposed to saying, we focus on what it looks like to be courageous today.

Luke Daly (27:58.198)
Good. So it's just an inversion of language almost in some ways.

Lukas Ritson (27:58.894)
Our words matter.

Lukas Ritson (28:02.86)
Yes. Yeah, and you try, like, there's research out there that, like, parents want their children to be courageous. Frowning.

Luke Daly (28:10.828)
Yeah, if I hear the word safety one more time, just in terms of we want you to be safe or stay safe, yeah, it boggles my mind.

Lukas Ritson (28:17.644)
Yeah. this is a safety issue. Is it?

Luke Daly (28:21.89)
don't get me wrong. I got, I got in a, in a blue, is an aquatics related, is just a personal story. My oldest son was playing basketball. My youngest son was there. And during the break times, we weren't allowed to shoot hoops because it was a safety issue. As I found out, because, because someone might slip over. It's like, hang on a second. So this whole safety thing drives me, drives me bonkers with respect. So

Lukas Ritson (28:48.014)
Like this is where the leveraging on the fantastic flexible nature of water and water playing aquatics comes in. Try getting restricted to shoot hoops. However, we're comfortable for our children to go swim in the ocean and swim in the pool and play with their friends in a pool and go over their friends house and play in the backyard. We need to leverage the stuff that the parents are letting their kids do to get the value out of

Luke Daly (29:11.97)
Stay tuned.

Luke Daly (29:16.246)
Yep, stakes are a lot higher,

Lukas Ritson (29:18.338)
Yeah, stakes are a bit huge.

Luke Daly (29:20.844)
So in our world, as we kind of come towards the end of the episode now, what can leaders in our industry do? Cause primarily the listeners to this podcast are in leadership and management capacities. Sometimes from the swim school world, sometimes through the aquatic world. Sometimes it's just my mom and dad listening while they drive somewhere. But what can leaders do if they want to, I suppose, measure, which is very difficult to measure. Cause we're talking about stuff that's inherently unmeasurable.

But how can they, how can we know if that play forward style methodology is working? Like pushing play first as as a primary thing. And while you think about that, cause I can see that you're thinking about that is I walk into some of these facilities sometimes and not all the time, but there's all these signs about risk and these hazards. And it's really quite terrifying if I could, you know, if I was a kid, you couldn't read anyway, but as an adult, there's all these just signs everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. So for me, that environment.

is important. It's not really promoting a safe, happy leisurely environment. It's really scary, to be honest. So there's two elements of that. Let's go the environmental piece from our aquatic and leisure facilities. What's one thing that you'd change about how they look? And then also from the teaching in that child development piece, how can we understand if that play first methodology could be working?

Lukas Ritson (30:43.149)
Yeah.

Lukas Ritson (30:49.122)
There's conflicting camps around signage and specifically for children. There's very old pedagogical theory that everything should be labeled and that we absorb language through signage. And then there's a whole another school, a more modern school saying, it doesn't happen like that. It's through spoken word and relationship.

And you see with the progression of pedagogy, it keeps coming back to relationship and communication and conversation first. So when I feel safe and secure within relationship, it hugely informs how I feel in the broader environment. So folks.

Luke Daly (31:37.58)
Which is why the teacher is so critical in that element. Sorry to catch off there even, but that's why that relationship and that consistency of let's zoom in on learn to swim again, the relationship and consistency of that one person makes such a big difference because they trust in that. And by extension, they're learning that the signs aren't helping them because they can't flip and read, but those signs are going, Hey, make sure you're with someone, make sure you're doing this, make sure you're entering the water safely. But because it's coming from someone they've built that trust and rapport with, you're saying that extends a lot faster.

Lukas Ritson (31:41.142)
No, no, no.

Yeah. Yeah.

Lukas Ritson (31:56.717)
Yeah.

Lukas Ritson (32:07.884)
It does. And it helps with the secure attachment of that child. So they feel safe because their parent feels safe. They're watching these micro expressions of their parents like constantly. They're like, how are you gauging this? If we're acting like a meerkat and we're bombarded with information, you're like, there's so many warnings and there's this and there's that and there's this. The child's like,

You're uncomfortable, I'm uncomfortable. How am I gonna feel safe and secure to be able to focus on a lesson? I'm gonna have emotional responses, angry, confused and upset. Within the childcare sector, I've worked with partners which they have a family's concierge. So it's the person between the front door and the educator that's consistent with them.

and they know all the children's names. They aren't the ones doing the, like that structured parameter work. Yeah. And then just focus on relationships. The retention they see in those centres is so much better than otherwise. So it's relationship, it's real, it's relatable. So to answer your question, there's a combination of environment and

and relationship that come into it. What's the one thing I can do? Make your families feel welcome. Get out from behind the counter, which is just, give you this, I trade you that. That's really important. And then the outcomes you see is retention. It's a child feels securely attached and confident. They have margin to try harder and advance faster.

and you have less refusal. If a child's feeling overwhelmed and they're watching their parent not like the teacher, et cetera, et cetera, and they're sitting at a nine out of 10 and the teacher's like, do this, they don't want to have a big emotional response and be crying and everything. So they just go, no.

Lukas Ritson (34:27.15)
the refusal is increasing over time. So it's through that secure attachment, you see the child get margin, their progress increases, their effort increases. Because when I feel securely attached, instead of being a nine out of 10, everything's safe. I do some physical activity, I burn off the stress in my body, I get to a five, now I've got margin, I've got capacity, instead of like, nut or

big sensory overwhelm. So it's just, that's where I think the goal lies. Yeah.

Luke Daly (35:04.896)
Yep. I think, I think you've hit the nail on the head there. And if you were to leave us with one thing for the Aquatics Swim School, general space, what would you leave us with?

Lukas Ritson (35:29.838)
Within interviews and talking on stage, I always come back and I'm like, stay playful, stay playful, stay playful. So in response to that answer, I instantly said, went to stay playful. However, to go a bit deeper is bring the attention to getting the satisfaction in the process. How are your staff getting more satisfaction in bringing their attention to the process?

not the outcome.

get them to celebrate that beautiful interaction with a child, ask them to capture their observations of the development of character of children. So honesty, care, compassion, courage, they're all very intangible types of observations and it's really far away from can they swim 50 metres

get them then to communicate what they observe within that development of the child's character back to the families. You watch the response in contrast to like, they did really good today, good concentration. Hey, I just want to share with you a moment that I noticed earlier. Your daughter, Amy, I saw her talking to Sarah. Sarah's really struggling.

And Amy was just so encouraging to her and just really elevated her and I saw them both live together. I just wanted to share that with you.

Lukas Ritson (37:14.508)
Watch the difference in rapport you get with your parents. You are joining in the mission in the development of the child now. Not in the development of a stroke, but the development of a child. And that is celebrating the process of development. Are they gonna get it wrong or right all the time? No. But also observe that. I saw them like, this wasn't okay. We need clear boundaries.

Absolutely, and the reason I want these clear boundaries is not because I want to keep your child safe. It's because I believe in them so much that if they work through this, it's just gonna be such a big milestone for them to overcome.

Luke Daly (37:59.01)
It's awesome, connect the why to the what

Lukas Ritson (37:59.128)
That's, that's, that's, that will get you there.

Luke Daly (38:03.766)
Beautiful. Now, I think a lot of our listeners will have got lots and lots out of this podcast episode today. So how can people follow your work? How can they learn more about you connect with you and pursue you more Lukas?

Lukas Ritson (38:16.226)
Yeah, Lukas with a K, Ritson on LinkedIn. I share a lot of articles and summaries of some of our podcasts over at Play It Forward, a Wearthy podcast. So if you want to, there's 50 something episodes from play experts from right across the globe. So that's available on all the platforms. And then if you're interested in that play and seeing our work from a design and execution standpoint, it's Wearthy.co.

Luke Daly (38:45.356)
Beautiful. We'll put those notes in the show notes anyway, Lukas. Hey, thank you so much for your time. I promise you it was going to be 25 minutes. We've nearly doubled that, but that's what happens when we get onto such good topics. So thank you for your time. And usually with our guests, Lukas on our outro, we have this little thing where I say AO or you can say AO and the other one says, let's go. So which one would you like to do?

Lukas Ritson (39:07.182)
I'll do the... I'll elevate the first one.

Luke Daly (39:09.11)
You're all right. All right. All right. Ready? first of all, thank you so much for your time. We'll see you again soon on the Aquatics Only podcast, but until then Lukas, let's go.

Lukas Ritson (39:12.749)
Yep.

Lukas Ritson (39:16.769)
Absolutely.

See you!