Children drowning on holiday.

Agreed. My grandparents used to have beautiful ornamental ponds and a lot of parties, my mum said she never relaxed at any of them until we were late primary school age because she was terrified if she switched off for a minute and assumed someone else was watching we'd drown. Very grateful now when I have children of my own that she's still switched on to this sort of risk!

Last holiday we were sat next to lady, her mum and 4 year old. They sunbathed and left the child to swim on her own. The lifeguard had to tell them multiple times. They also rely on strangers fo watch their children, its neglectful and dangerous.

Yes, exactly this. This is how my friend’s son drowned.

Imagine reading about such a tragedy and coming straight onto the Internet to post all the ways you're so much better than these very newly bereaved parents (who may well come on here for support).

The point could have been made without bringing someone else's tragedy into it, and inviting speculation as to all the ways people assume the parents have been negligent when you don't even have anything but the minimum of details.

This is the worst of MN honestly. Every time there's an accident and a child dies this happens.

many years ago a boy drowned in a local pool but what was tragic was he was under the water on the bottom for a long time with the other kids and adults swimming on the top. it was only when someone dived in he was spotted.
you can never take risks near water of any kind; sea. pools, rivers, etc. the trouble with holidays everyone is relaxed often with alcohol adults think they deserve a break too so they hit the cocktails read their books etc but it is too late when a child drowns. as someone else said its a silent thing often the old idea of kids screaming is rubbish they do not have time.
I wonder if I can add a personal plea as well? as well as holidays in the summer a lot of people are visiting relatives etc. please before you let your children into the gardens check if they have a pond. years ago my relation and his wife had a much longed for house to move to. on moving day the three children ran into the house and out in to the garden. in the time it took for the adults to get out of the car and walk through the house the smallest child fell into a goldfish pond that was in the garden they were not aware the last people had left. sadly by the time the pond was checked after trying everywhere else it was too late.

Its so scary. I dont know how parents of multiple children manage. I am surprised at how relaxed some parents are near water, I think like PPs have said lots of people and lifeguards give the illusion of safety.

3 years ago on holiday in Turkey the hotel we were staying at had a water slide that got turned on at intermittent times of the day. All the kids would rush in with floats, lilos etc so the bottom of the pool could hardly be seen. Both my older teenagers are trained lifeguards and immediately they heard the noise that the slide made as it turned on they would be 'on duty' and scanning the pool - they could not be relaxed until the pool cleared. There was no official lifeguard on duty - but at least for 2 weeks of the season my kids took on that role...

It's such a horrible thing and the parents must be devastated. When I was little in the 90s we used to just go to the local lake and swim all day, every day and there were no adults present. Just a bunch of local kids messing about. I do remember us having to do a two week swimming course at the beginning of the summer and pretty much all of us learned to swim then, but still there should have been someone supervising. One of the kids in my group did drown one summer and it was traumatic to the whole community. He was little and tried to keep up with the big boys, and he had a medical episode while in the water and drowned. It was awful. There were no adults around at all.

I had to jump in the local marina last year to rescue a girl who was mucking around in the water even though she couldn't swim (think she was around 12-13), and this prompted me to sign DC up for swimming lessons. We've been going for a year and they still can't swim because the progress is so so slow. In the end I took DC to Spain for a week so they could spend their time splashing in the pool (with me!) and they learned to swim pretty quickly. I feel better about swimming and being around water now, but I will still watch them like a hawk because kids often lack water sense and will piss around thinking they're invincible, and it only takes a few seconds for them to e.g. jump in the marina/river/pool. It is so easy to get distracted and I wouldn't blame the parents as these things happen so fast, but I'm doing my best to keep my DC safe, and I always keep an eye on other kids near water too because no one is drowning on my watch.

Horrible to think about.

Not to derail, but he pleaded guilty, and if you watch the released CCTV footage from inside the room (it’s on YouTube) he leans out of the window himself for a while, then lifts her up and over the barrier so she’s basically out of the window, and holds her there for a good while before she falls. Yes the windows were angled but it’s incredibly difficult to believe that he thought there was glass there when you see it. You’re right he didn’t go to prison though - he was sentenced to community service.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not exactly a safe set up with windows that open at roughly adult waist height so I can understand the family pursuing the cruise line, but he was certainly negligent, just in a different way to parents/carers that take their eyes off children in water (which is a separate, but huge concern).

As a lifeguard in a past life, complacency of some people with their children around water is really quite horrifying.

Surely most classes, where the children can't swim, have a parent accompanying them?

Nothing worse than the people who piggy back on someone else’s tragedy to go on about how much of a better parent they are. Talk about tone deaf.

I’m amazed he was fine. Gosh how horrid.

And it doesn’t even have to be a large group: in an unfamiliar holiday villa it just takes dad being with the kid in the kitchen whilst he’s cooking, then they run a few rooms away to the living room where their mum last was and where he thinks she still is; except she’s nipped to the loo, and the kid manages to open the patio doors and run out to the pool. When mum gets back she thinks kid is still in the kitchen; dad thinks kid is with her.

Risk can never be eliminated, but there are parents who seem to do no risk assessment at all while poolside.

I relaxed my guard when the DCs were in stage 5 and confidently swimming lengths in deep water. Still not risk-free, but the strength and skill to avoid getting into difficulties was significantly lower.

I've always been in the water with my DCs which hasn't been a hardship because I enjoy swimming and that kind of play with them. I would have wanted them to be strong swimmers before not being in the water with them. It does always surprise me how many parents let younger children who are not strong swimmers be in the water without an adult being in close proximity. Supervising from the poolside puts more layers of distraction between the parent and child and adds delay to responding to any issues developing.

Hotel pools can often have patchy lifeguarding provision and maintainence is not always optimal. They can be busy, loud and chaotic which can easily mask a child getting into difficulties. A parent on a sunlounger doesn't have a good vantage point, even if they're sober and paying attention, and not all are. Quite often junior school age children of dubious swimming ability are left to play unsupervised.

At 6, I slipped in a relatively deep public paddling pool and went under. I was a non-swimmer, but fortunately managed to kick off the bottom and get my head up without taking in any water. It did shake me up. I finally learnt to swim at 16 and have gone on to become a strong swimmer. It was important for me to have children that could play safely in water and develop into strong swimmers.
We had a holiday when DS2 was 18m and the posibility of him bolting and plunging himself into a swimming pool was high so he was on reins while in public areas of the hotel. This was explained to a bemused local with the words "Ussain Bolt". No way was I trusting a toddler who a few months earlier took his first steps to gleefully plung himself into a swimming pool (it was during a swimming lesson and I was in place to catch him!)

It Is an ongoing source of frustration that so much swimwear/ watersports equipment is in ideal colours to mask drowning.

It’s my worst fear. Relatively high percentage happens under the care of grandparents too.

I’ve jumped into a pool fully clothed to rescue someone else’s kid. No blame on the parents- it was a matter of seconds when they were momentarily distracted.

We have a large family we travel with sometimes. It’s actually much harder when there’s a group as sometimes everyone thinks someone else is watching.

i Agree with this 100%.

I know of a family who lost a child in a tragic swimming pool accident. It took seconds for it to happen.

I am sure they have spent years beating themselves up about the accident but it was just that a tragic accident. This family have turned it around and helped to ensure that children are taught what to do if they fall into water which I think is fantastic of them!

I am a qualified swimming teacher, although I haven’t taught for quite a while.
in the UK we use noodles and floats for teaching, but nothing on the child’s body. This means the teacher can only take one child across the pool at a time, because little kids won’t hold onto the floats by themselves. So if you have six kids in a 30 minute class, each child only gets to swim for 5 minutes while the others hold onto the side! It’s ridiculous. And that’s why it takes an absolute age for most children to learn how to swim if you rely solely on a weekly swimming class. It’s not enough and it means that although children are confident to be in the water, they’re not learning any of the skills they’d need to actually be able to help themselves if they were to get into difficulty in a body of water.

I recently got back from an AI holiday and it was an eye opener how little supervision some parents gave their children. Almost all had inflatable toys but they’re so easy to slip off/fall out of. Thankfully there were some very vigilant life guards, I should think they knew they had their work cut out.

But I do think we need a bit of ‘there for the grace go I’ thinking because really accidents happen all the time, to good, vigilant parents as well as lax ones. My toddler child has bolted at the pool too and been millimetres away from slipping over into the deep end. If I had another child to attend to or become distracted by something it’s so easy to understand how he could have slipped in undetected and then just sank like a stone.

A friend once jumped in and pulled an unconscious toddler from the bottom of a local outdoor pool. Thank God he noticed as the pool was busy and he just happened to walk past at the right angle. The child was fine but it was horrifying. I think in that case it was an example of the adults assuming another member of the group was watching.

Yes, I agree - there needs to be a scheme whereby parents of under 5 can get discounted/free access to swimming lessons, and then include swimming lessons as a mandatory part of school P.E. Not only is there the obvious safety benefit, but also health benefits as swimming is great whole-body exercise without the injury risk that comes with many sports activities.

This is exactly what I mean.

I can watch my son, can handover to MIL, but who does she then handover to? If I was alone, he'd come with me.

(Side note, I'm the only one who bloody uses the pool when my ILs holiday, so why they insist on a villa with a pool baffles me anyway!)

This is why I turn down villa holidays with the in laws and a toddler, and set limits on my parents too.

Myself, my husband and my MIL and my dad would all be vigilant - but my FIL and my mum wouldn't. And my husband and MIL would leave our son with FIL. I don't think my dad would leave him with my mum.

My mum and FIL are both the sort to get preoccupied with their own thing and take their eye off the ball for more than enough time for a toddler to disappear.

If only we could have a break with just my dad and MIL we could relax a bit, but as it is it's easier to do without them!

We have a pool and we always have one person who knows they are watching the dc.
If they want to leave then they must ask another person to watch and check that the other person knows they are watching.
We also have an alarm.

Most dc drown on the first or last day of the holiday when parents are distracted.

Agree. And put your bloody phone down.
Holidays with young kids are not for lying on sun loungers gawping at your phone and downing cocktails. You need 7 pairs of eyes.