Children drowning on holiday.

We live by the sea and and I cringe every year at tourists sunbathing while their children float away quite far out in rubber rings and stuff. People assume if children have arm bands, life jackets and rubber rings they won't drown but it's not true. I actually think it's safer to send your child into a pool or the sea with no floatation devices at all and not allow them to go out of thier depth, or hold on to them and help them learn to swim if very little.

And yes the problem with float jackets is that they can a) instil a false sense of confidence in children. Children ideally should be a bit nervous of the water, respectful. Float jackets on when aren’t actively swimming can promote risk-taking behaviour that means they may be more likely to enter the pool alone and b) they can sometimes cause children to get stuck in positions in the water that they can’t get out of, when without a float jacket they might be able to keep their head out. There was a horrible story a while ago about a child whose float suit thing ended up leaving him trapped stuck upside down in the water.

This post is unintentionally cruel, OP.

The reality is that the main difference between parents whose children have near misses and parents whose children die is luck. Of course you can say 'this never happened to me because I watched my children like a hawk, other people need to be more careful'. It makes us feel better to think an awful tragedy could never happen to us because we're more careful, but truly so often it comes down to luck.

Of course we must all be strictly aware of where our kids are at all times, but when something horrific like this happens it's not the time to say 'don't these parents know they have to be vigilant every second?', because there but for the grace of god go all of us.

I think threads like this are important as we head into summer holiday season. Know where your child is at all times. Never assume someone else is watching them. Never assume the other parent is ‘on duty’ unless you’ve physically had that discussion. Never assume because it’s a busy pool with lots of people around they will be safe. Never assume that they can’t access the pool area while off playing.

I'll never forget my friend's hen party, when DS1 was a toddler. It was at her house, a relaxed, alternative kind of affair. I'd said I couldn't come because of DS, but they were like "No it's fine, just bring him!" Most of those attending were mums- I think there were another couple of kids, but older. I arrived with DS in tow, they were all sitting I the kitchen, I said "Can you watch him for a second while I go and get more stuff from the car?", they were all like "Yeah yeah!"

5 minutes later I came back from the car with an armful of stuff to find DS outside, standing in the water at the edge of the pond in his socks. Luckily he hadn't gone any deeper. He'd let himself out of the house and they hadn't even noticed 😡.

This specific one was a private villa I think. I have only once had a private villa as it was so incredibly stressful, constantly checking all the doors were locked when we wanted to all be inside, checking someone hadn't opened a random side door which I child could escape through. The pool wasn't fenced off so I had to lock us all inside every time I needed to cook or do something.

We did eurocamp the next time where we had to walk half a mile to the pool. Much less stressful....

Float jackets are a drowning risk themselves

Years ago on holiday, DH and stepson, we were in the sea. Only waist deep. I thought I heard a very faint and scared voice weakly saying “help”. I looked around and a toddler was in a tiny inflatable boat, like beach toy.

I managed to reached the string and got her back to the beach. Both parents were convinced that she was with the other parent.

If I hadn’t heard her she would have floated out to sea.

I agree with this. A toddler near me drowned a year or two back, he had followed a visitor out or the visitor hadn’t closed a door, and they realised fairly quickly that he wasn’t in the house, but he was found later in the pond .
My friend’s three year old drowned in a pool on holiday, they had rented a villa with another family, arrived and were unpacking cars etc, and my friend and her husband each thought their little boy was with the other parent. There was a pool and he had fallen in and drowned by the time they found him, it wasn’t a long time, this can happen so quickly.
A little girl I know, just three, actually woke up very early, managed to get out of the house and walked to the playground- about a five minutes walk away but not within sight. It was an hour or two before anyone knew she had gone. She was still happily playing in the playground but it always gave me the horrors, my dd was the same age and I went over and over never leaving the house etc. There was a body of water near by, it could have ended in tragedy but luckily didn’t, and nobody was at fault.

Isn’t there a decent chance the parent/s of that child in the news are on this site? Imagine seeing your OP which immediately jumps to ‘kids not being properly parented’.

I don’t like this thread 😕

I've seen someone talking about this and they had a physical token of some sort - I don't know what it was, but e.g. a wooden spoon, to pick a random example. The adult who was in charge of supervising the child in their pool had to hold the wooden spoon. You couldn't put it down on the side and fiddle with your phone - if you're holding the spoon, you pay attention and watch them. And have to physically hand the spoon to another responsible adult if you pass on the job of child watching.

I agree, so many people are complete idiots.

I dragged a 4-5 year old child out of a swimming pool in Tenerife a couple years ago, they were choking and couldn’t keep their head up. Mum was asleep on a lounger and dad was in the bar, it took about 10 minutes of us and a lifeguard shouting for them for us to figure out who the parents were.

I think a lot of the time with these things it’s where there’s been an incomplete/misunderstood handover between parents or where there are lots of family around so everyone assumes that someone else is watching the child. I am very paranoid about DC and the water so one of us is always in the water in arms reach of both, and if both kids are in we are both in the water generally unless it’s a private pool setting where one of us might be on the side watching. They are never left unaccompanied at the pool and on holiday they are never allowed to be anywhere the pool without an adult, even if they aren’t expecting to go in,

I heard about a technique some parents do at parties where they have something like a red ribbon and whoever is holding that is responsible for the child. They pass it between them but it means there’s never any crossed wires about who is responsible and watching the kids at the pool. Seems like a good idea because as pps say, a lot of the risk comes in when one adult thinks another has got the kids covered and they think the same.

Mine had float jackets when they were little and we had just moved to a Mediterranean island... we could put them on them before they were anywhere near the water. No blowing up to do. Plus more comfy.

It may sound counterintuitive but accidents seem to happen more when there are more adults rather than less. One adult, you are focused. 2 or more... someone else is watching.

2yo is obviously too young for water safety lessons, but education about it is lacking in the UK.

A lot of children are killed on their own driveway, by parents reversing out. I think that some people are just less risk adverse, especially men, so fatal incidents happen. Look at the amount of grandads, who have dropped grandchildren from heights. The cruise ship one has never left me. I see it all of the time on holiday/days out. It's always men holding up young children, or letting them climb. I appreciate that women do to, but statistically children have accidentally more when men are in charge. I hate it when men leave toddlers to trail behind them crossing roads, speaking personally, I've never seen women (who have the children more so should be at their limit) do the same risky things.

There’s been a lot of stuff about this on social media recently with some high profile incidents involving American influencers. The stats about child drownings in the states are horrific, with all the domestic pools out there I think it’s the number one cause of childhood deaths. I had no idea until reading some of the articles, quite how fast it can happen. What can be done other than mandated fencing though, which is already in place in many states, I don’t know. Tragic beyond words.

The most terrifying thing about drowning is that it can be silent. In a busy pool, it is possible not to notice a child sinking to the bottom.

I once said no to my DD (who was then about 4 or 5) going to a family party where there is an unfenced pool. I wasn’t able to attend but family members offered to look after her. A family member mentioned that the kids may want to swim and I could not trust the adults in a group setting, with glasses of wine in hand, to supervise them properly. They thought I was mad but I don’t regret the decision.

Well you can't, that's why it happens. It is known that a child is more likely to drown when it is accompanied by multiple people because we assume that someone has their eye on them.

It's tragic, and must be one of the most horrific ways to not only lose a child but also to die.

Even when you think you are watching diligently, it takes a fraction of time for something bad to happen.

Same. And also a lone parent. I never relaxed for a second around water or roads with my children. I had to persuade my mum to come to the beach once when the eldest wanted to try the sea with me but the youngest needed to stay on the beach.

The other thing is, things can sometimes unfold too quickly for parents to stop it.

Do we know the circumstances surrounding this particular incident? We all know just how rapidly young children can slip out of sight.

There was a case a few years ago where this happened. Child slipped away, parents were looking for him in the area but unfortunately he had gone into a nearby pool (or lake, I think) and drowned.

Totally agree op.

When it comes to toddler deaths and drownings, on holiday is a classic scenario where two parents are out of their usual routines, more relaxed than usual, possibly drinking while in charge of dc, unfamiliar or unaware of physical dangers, and many of us in relationships or family groups have done the thing where we think a child is with our other half when in reality they are somewhere else.

There were also, incredibly sadly, quite close to me, two toddler deaths in ponds, when the families involved had just moved house. One toddler had slipped down the drive unseen and drowned in a neighbour’s pond and another had drowned in the family’s pond before they were able to get fencing up.

The same applies to drowning children who may not look panicked, and teens or young adults who dive in to too-shallow water and end up paralysed.

Be safe everyone 💐

I think unfortunately no amount of education will get through to every single parent. I'm not saying these parents are to blame because I don't know the full circs, but I don't see what more we could do as a society about cases of people not taking water safety seriously in general because there will always be people who won't listen, don't think the rules apply to them, think it's okay because it's just 5 minutes/they're just a few feet away/it's just one drink. See also all the other dangerous things people do in our society where the only reason no one gets hurt is luck, and when it happens people trot out "but no one tolllllld meeeeeee" like there should be a safety advisor going door to door specifically giving them a one-to-one that it's a bad idea to do an exhaustive list of things or someone standing next to them physically stopping them doing the dangerous thing.

TW
When my son was a baby he was playing in the bath. I was sat next to the bath watching him. He slipped under the water. Obviously, no harm done as I was next to him but I will never forget the image of his eyes being open under the water. If Id gone to answer the door or grab a towel or whatever at that moment...
The parents must be feeling awful.😪