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?

I think the emphasis in swimming lessons has changed. No one had proper lessons growing up, we went once a week with school. They showed you the basic strokes, then it was all about ploughing up and down the pool. All the badges were distance until you did the bronze/silver/ gold ones and you got to swim in your pjs. I'm an ugly swimmer, but fairly strong.

My two spent years on getting technique right. It's only in lifesavers that they're doing the stamina bit.

Statistically children who can swim are far more likely to drown than those who can’t.

Of course, they’re more likely to be in water. But they’re also more likely to swim in riskier settings (lakes, the sea, deep end if pool) and have inadequate supervision.

As an adult, I’d think about risks I was taking. EG I white-water kayak, but wouldn’t launch myself off niagra falls. “Safe” to swim in a hotel pool at 10 is different from swimming in a deep Loch.

The younger the child, the more likely that when disoriented they’ll swim in any random direction rather than toward safety. Falling into water, a sudden deep bit, an unexpected current, wake from a boat, etc can all be enough to disorientate (obviously degrees of panic /surprise giving degrees of disorientation).

I hate the phrase “it’s fine, she’s a good swimmer” applied to children.

Just wanted to add to this as I had a horrible experience with my preschooler a few days ago in the pool on holiday and it’s still haunting me - she is learning to swim but obviously not a strong swimmer yet. I was in the water with her and some friends and other little ones, some of them got on a giant pool inflatable with a very wide base. Although I thought I was being vigilant I must have been momentarily distracted as I suddenly couldn’t see her - I then had the sickening realisation that she was trapped under the inflatable. After what felt like an eternity (probably 10 seconds) she came up gasping and crying - luckily absolutely fine but I still feel sick thinking what could have been. We were in the shallow end surrounded by people - I just wanted to highlight the dangers of these inflatables really as she told me she got knocked under by it, little ones don’t stand a chance. Massive lesson for me about being 100% vigilant at all times and I’ll be refreshing my CPR training.