Kids swimming and drowning..

[runforyourdog]

I keep seeing all these worrying posts about kids drowning and how you need to watch them every second..

I was just wondering, at what stage / age are kids able to be left to get on with it without risk of drowning?

Is it kids who can't swim who drown or when they get injured or get tired?

My son was 9 on holiday wheh I let him go to swimming with his older brother and told both to stay near the side - there were lifeguards.

i still felt irresponsible doing this even though they are competent swimmers.

To add, I live near rivers and see lots of kids jumping in from bridges 🥲🥲

This brings back memories of a holiday at Biarritz DH & DS (15 then)and lots of others having fun in the waves, DS suddenly wasn’t there anymore, DH couldn’t see him, came out the sea as quickly as he could to alert lifeguards who cleared sea to spot DS, sent a lifeguard out but DS came in unaided doing what he’d been taught to do at lifeguards (thank god we’d signed him up for this)when faced being pulled out by a riptide which is go round. We all feared the worst, the time waiting for him to be spotted seemed like an eternity, the moments I thought our son had been swept out to sea and drowned stay with me forever. Just be careful, happens in a split second, fun in the waves, nearly ended in a tragedy for our family. Sign your DC up for lifeguards even if they are component swimmers, saved ours sons life and stopped him panicking.

DD is 8 and is a strong swimmer for her age (has passed her Bronze award and almost complete stage 8). I wouldn’t leave her unattended in a pool until she is much older (I wouldn’t be in the pool, but would be at the side). It only takes a few seconds for them to drown.

The little boy drowning during a swimming lesson is chilling. This is why I have refused to allow my 4yo non-swimmer to attend lessons where parents aren't allowed poolside. We will be starting swimming lessons in September at a pool where parents can stay and watch from the cafe area next to the pool (and they also stream footage of the pool on a TV in the cafe).

I'm a trained lifeguard and taught open water rescue... Drowning is fast and can be silent.
I've had my 4 year old in swimming since 6mths and I wouldn't trust him at all. I've programmed him if tierd/ panicking to float on his back and my ex dsc.

Pools and open water are NOT the same. I want to take my wee one wild swimming when he's older so he knows how it feels not in a pool and what to do if in trouble.

Im an strong swimmer but cold water shock can happen to the best in open water swimmers and having had it, I ta not to be sniffed at.

If I was you op I'd watch them All the time

We are lucky enough to have our own pool. But that comes with a huge responsibility when friends visit.

I have had to rescue little kids a few times, mainly when they are in arm bands/vests, come out for a drink or something and then jump back in without thinking. I also have to be super careful that the garden doors are locked when toddlers are visiting. Thankfully, that has never been a problem.

My two boys are 10 and 12 and are allowed in the pool without my being outside, but I check up on them frequently and have the windows open to hear any nonsense going on. They are both good swimmers, but I won't be leaving them unsupervised in large hotel pools when on holiday.

My DS is 6 and has just finished stage 2, he can confidently swim a length of the pool now but I wouldn’t let him in a hotel pool without me or DH. When we’ve been in a villa with a small private pool I’ll allow him in the pool by himself with me or DH on the side but I watch him. I wouldn’t do that in a hotel pool because there’s too many other people around so I wouldn’t feel confident that I could see him the whole time.

At 5 and 7 I would be in the water with them.

At our campsite last year a lovely mum was watching he kids play in the pool wearing armbands.

She was honestly very attentive and looking out for them.

The younger one got out to ask for a drink while the older one took her armbands off, jumped in and immediately started drowning. A guy jumped in with his clothes on to lift he out.

It can happen in a moment.

Must say it really makes me twitchy at beach or pool, to see parents - who I’m sure think they are watching their children - mostly glued to their phones.

As someone who very nearly had a toddler drown at under 2 - it happened so fast and I’d always thought I was super-careful - I know just how quickly it can happen.

Hotel pools can be really busy and people get distracted, mess about, so never.
I grew up 5 mins from the beach, I’m a strong swimmer and my sister trained as a lifeguard. We took some dreadful risks in the sea as children because we could swim well, I shudder to think of it now. We had it drummed in to us to never swim in fresh water.

Three children drowned on the sandbanks when I was a teenager and I knew two people who found dead bodies on the beach from being drowned. Another lad was paralysed from jumping in to shallow water. I still used to tombstone from the sea wall or pier, I was the only girl who would do it.

I'm a school swimming teacher and learn to swim instructor. Swimming by yourself in a swimming pool age 10 is OK by a leisure sta centre standards, however there's still children that age who can't swim. Swimming outside in rivers ,lakes, reviours,the sea is a totally different. It can affect the strongest swimmer if they get trapped on something, gets caught in a current or cold water shock. My ex boyfriend died by falling in the river drunk his boy was found days later. Water is dangerous, its about being sensible about the dangers of water. Few years ago glee star nivera went out on a boat and went swimming with her son she managed to him to safety but couldn't herself she was a swimmer.

It's about respecting the water and the dangers it carries.

It has very little to do with age.
There are three main factors. 1/ Can the child swim competently? 2/ Are they swimming in a safe place (not a quarry, places with rip tides, very cold water etc), 3/ Are they doing anything silly that could cause them to hit their head/injure themselves. Age is NOT a factor is you don't respect those rules.

And parents - put your phones away when your kids are in water and don't put arm bands on them - absolute nightmare trying to teach a child used to arm bands to swim as they are used to their arms going out to the side rather than in forward circles. If you want to use a buoyancy, one round the chest is better. But much better to just teach them to swim! Oh, did I mention put your phones away?

If they can both swim I think you're fine on the side but watching all the time, poised to do your Baywatch impression.

British canoing have just released a safety course for SUP. I think it's a really good idea. It will cover risk assessments, understanding weather conditions (wind, waves etc), self rescue and how to help others. It's about £45 and well worth it - good fun too!
As a beginner, we don't know what we don't know.

We over prepare. Conditions can change so quickly, especially on large lakes and the sea.

Any body of water is dangerous, even for competent swimmers.
Nobody needs to be a clairvoyant to know that the news will sadly be populated with reports of yet another teenager (usually a boy) will have drowned in a river/quarry/lake.
It matters not one jot that you are a strong swimmer, nobody knows what lies beneath open water.
Go to a local swimming pool if you want to swim

Too young to not be in arms length of them in the pool imo. My DD passed Stage 8 at age 7, progressed to club swimming and I only just let her swim in a pool, surrounded by lifeguards, without me in the water within arms length last week at age 11. Even then I was twitchy and kept looking over as I sat in the grass.

Leaving them unattended is just not worth the risk. Its not them you need to worry about necessarily, but other bigger people swimming or trampling over them and them not being able to right themselves.

In England this probably isn’t helped by the national curriculum only requiring children to swim 25m. I think it leads to complacency and people thinking their child can swim if they can swim a length. In reality a child (or adult) who can only swim 25m in a pool is a weak swimmer.

I nearly drowned at 19 on a beach in Portugal, a large wave knocked me under, shocked me and I lost my balance and bearings completely. When I say I could have died, I was so lucky to have got out as I then injured my foot at the bottom. I should have known as it was after a number of tourists died on beaches in the sea in same area, years prior.

Age 10, my grandmother left me to swim in the sea in the UK with fairly choppy waters and I went too far out. I was treading water desperately and panicked. I waved for help and grandmother waved back

I would watch my children like a hawk by the sea no matter what their age is.

In a pool I'd expect a bit more independence based on skill and being over 10, as long as there's a lifeguard.

Blanket advice like this does not save lives. As a country, we're learning again that our waters can be used for recreation.
Many other countries have always used their waters like this.

We need to understand about cold water shock, how to anticipate risks and mitigate for them and so on. There's a lot we can do to make outdoor swimming much safer, although nothing is ever completely safe.

Young people will be attracted to outdoor swimming whether we tell them to only use swimming pools or not, so arming them with information is the best thing we can do.

I live in the Lake District, and people don't realize that while jumping in a cold lake/river/stream on a hot day may seem like a good idea, it can actually be very dangerous, even for good swimmers. This is mainly teenagers, not small children who are usually being well supervised by parents.

My DDs had lessons in a Mediterranean country (where we lived) and in England. The lessons abroad concentrated on strength and safety. A basic test they wanted them to pass was to jump into the deep end, tread water/float for 30 seconds then get themselves to the shallow end (25m).
Their English lessons were all about perfecting strokes.

My elder DD spent ages in Swim England Stage 5 as she couldn't do butterfly...

They have never swam a length in their lessons, only widths (now in Stage 6!). Weve decided to remove them and work on stamina ourselves so they can become safer swimmers.

My dd was a county swimmer and confident sea swimmer. She got knocked over by a freak wave a couple of years ago, swallowed a mouthful of sea water and nearly drowned. luckily, she was pulled out by someone who saw her struggling.

I don’t think anyone is 100% safe in open water but the more experience you have and the stronger you are at swimming then the better your chances are of being able to cope in a tricky situation.

I can see where they are coming from in terms of swimmer development, but I think you are right in terms of stamina @PuttingDownRoots.

It must be possible to find a balance somewhere.