Worried about my 17-year-old swimming in lakes and rivers with friends

[Ketley67]

I’m worrying myself sick. DS is 17, a few of his friends have learnt how to drive, add in this glorious weather and of course they’re wanting to go to areas with water to swim in.

Yesterday they went to a river, today they’re going to a lake. The lake permits swimming but I’m so worried about them all! I’ve explained the dangers to him.

Not enjoying this age where they’re got a taste of freedom but haven’t fully developed their common sense!

I grew up swimming in lakes - there were four in my home town.

Sonif your son can swim and knows the dangers he is fine.

Rivers would’ve an absolute hard no though. You are asking for trouble .

I grew up swimming in lakes - there were four in my home town.

Sonif your son can swim and knows the dangers he is fine.

Rivers would’ve an absolute hard no though. You are asking for trouble .

As a general point the blanket "don't swim" mentality doesn't work. Not all open water locations are equal and it's better to be informed how to do it more safely e.g. check entry/ exit points, gradually acclimatise in rather than jumping in, and just locations that genuinely are incredibly dangerous. There's a patch of river near me with a falsely alluring nickname which has a history of drownings due to the weir and is disgustingly just downstream of the sewerage works. It even stinks regularly. Other places don't have specific additional hazards, but the UK's blanket "no swimming" approach ends up lumping everywhere together and undermines informed risk assessment and masks the genuinely treacherous.

Really, cold water shock should be called "temperature difference shock". The biggest temperature difference I've known was when it was 40⁰C and the water was about 22⁰C. In autumn the air and water temperature differences are far closer and there's less adjustment than there is on a hot day even if the water is a couple of degrees cooler.

Open water swimming technique is also different to pools. It's rare to have still water so it costs more energy to move through compared to a contained pool even without temperature issues. It needs adaptability, spotting, varying the stroke.

Statistically most drownings are from people who didn't intend to enter the water for swimming. Ironically I'm statistically more likely to drown while running than by intending to swim! Alcohol is a major factor in hot weather drownings. Also over-confident (under practiced) swimmers who think they're strong along with weak/ non-swimmers who are peer-pressured in.

Ignorance and a culture that obstructs good practice and local knowledge when there will always be a desire to enjoy open water in hot weather has never prevented spates of tragedies. Informed decisions are the best way to manage risk.

Actually, the RLSS is saying that cold water shock is currently a big contributory factor and that water temperature, particularly rivers, is very cold (below 15 degrees).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8plymvm47o

Depends if beach has riptides.

It will be this week because it was so cold just two weeks ago with unseasonably cold temps.

My Dd aged 16 has started to go to he beach with friends. I have impressed on her again and again that she can only swim in lifeguarded zones. I think she will comply as tragically a friend of ours in his 20s drowned last summer. But I must admit it still causes anxiety until she’s home.

I m confused why you are worried! He hasn’t been outdoors?! Or he doesn’t know how to swim?

Why would you be confused? Do you not follow the news at all?

Water in different places is different temperatures.

the sea is currently quite cold. I just swam in it this afternoon.

some of those deaths are at beaches.

beaches can also be dangerous to swim at - riptides etc. the sea is easily much more powerful than a strong swimmer.

cold water shock may well be a major factor there.

lakes heat up much quicker in response to a few days of heat and rivers particularly smallish ones respond very fast.

i swam in the Cam just upstream from Cambridge on Monday and it was 22.2
the river was full of swimmers and paddle boarders.

cold water shock is much less likely at that temperature although obviously not impossible.

most drownings involve a mixture of a bad choice of where to swim, alcohol, bravado (eg jumping from a high point into a lake or river) etc etc.

if you don’t listen to stupid peers telling you to do stupid things and don’t drink and pay attention to where is safe to swim you are well on the way to not drowning,

If he’s able to swim and the lake permits swimming he should be ok. They wouldn’t permit it if it was totally unsafe. Would be different if he was going somewhere that specifically advised against swimming. Of course there is always risk, but then there’s risk crossing the road isn’t there? Does he know not to jump into water that he doesn’t know the depth of and is he able to swim well enough to get himself out of trouble? If so then you can’t hold him back from life, and if he can’t/doesn’t know these things why
on earth not at his age? He’s 17 not a small child, I was cliff diving at that age (and actually from age 11) but then I grew up near the sea and was well versed in water/sea safety, knew the risks and dangers and how to identify and avoid them, and was a strong swimmer (a qualified lifeguard in fact).

Just talk to him first about not doing stupid stuff because his mates are and hope the message sinks in.

This a million times, it baffles me how unaware people are about swimming, particularly in open water/the sea. It’s a huge parenting/education failure in this country.

It frustrates me do much when kids of primary age stop swimming, but do a load of other extracurricular activities. Thinking they can swim after a length is a big mistake, as by the next summer they will need to push off the bottom to do this so are even at risk in a swimming pool.

Then kids behaving like idiots and jumping on each other in the water…

9 tragic deaths so far this half-term from open water swimming. 7 of them children and of those, 6 are boys. I feel like more really needs to be done to help prevent deaths like these. Years ago there were adverts talking about the dangers. Did these help at all? Not really sure what to do, schools can’t do more, the curriculum is already stuffed, and lots of parents on here saying that kids don’t want to listen to them. But this can’t go on. Something needs to change.

And people have been made really unwell too so it’s not just deaths. I was reading earlier about a woman who got mange from swimming in a canal.

we live near a river with paths all along for miles. The older teens go drinking and I live in fear of them all thinking it’s a good idea to swim in river. You can paddle at points but kids get carried away. So many young deaths in last few days

Plus the kids jumping off bridges when there are shopping trolleys, stolen bikes, broken glass, etc., on top of the drowning risk.

I do and I am always surprised how parents haven’t taught their kids how to be safe at water. I grew up by the water in Europe and we were playing untented from like 13-14 years old.

That’s definitely why they need to be taught where is safe(r) to go
if you say don’t swim, they’ll still swim but in secret

last year there was a big group of teenagers turned up when we had a wild swim meet, and people helped and showed them how to get in slowly, which bits of the reservoir are easiest to get in etc etc
they were all really lovely and thankful (and spent a lot of time throwing balls for the dogs!)
people also bring their younger children and teach them to swim there

Honestly, I completely get why you’re worrying. I’d feel the same way. Those things are always going to make any parent feel uncomfortable. But, I think at this age, it’s important to keep communication open so he still tells you where he’s going.

You can jump into lakes but its sensible to first go in slowly to adjust to the temperature, and only jump in if you know the area well so know if its safe to jump (no dangerous rocks, rubbish dumped in, easy place to get out etc.). Jumping into lakes is extremely common in my country, in many places the public pools close in the summer because everyone just swims in the lakes and they have swimming jetties to jump off of. My town used to have a long jetty with stairs up to different levels for diving from (these are still common in some places, there was one at the place DD went to volleyball camp last summer, their coach sent the parent chat videos every evening of the kids diving in off the highest level)

Problem is that many Brits don't learn these things when they're little children, making it habit.

So it sounds like you are aware of some of the issues around swimming in the UK? When I see a post like the OP’s, it makes a lot of sense to me given our culture here. Whenever we visit other European countries we are blown away by the quality and accessibility of swimming pools and really enjoy swimming in them; the culture around swimming in many of those countries is so different to here.

I consider myself very lucky as I was in swimming lessons from a couple of months old, swam all through childhood competitively and recreationally, worked as a swimming teacher and lifeguard as a teenager and now, as an adult, have become an experienced open water swimmer. People I meet often express genuine amazement at ‘how good’ I am at swimming - I put this in inverted commas because my standard would be considered much more the norm in some countries but here it is the exception. It is appalling how deprioritised and underfunded swimming lessons and swimming pools are here, and the price of that is needless deaths.

@Ketley67 Key questions here are how well can your son swim and how educated is he about the dangers? It’s never too late to learn so if he could be a stronger swimmer then one mitigation could be to go swimming together once a week - nice activity to do as well. There are organisations with lots of information about open water dangers and how to mitigate these as well - others have made good suggestions. Water looks like a friend on a hot day but it can be a dangerous enemy.

I teach and we were talking about swimming recently. I asked how many of my year 10 students were strong swimmers and just over half the class said they were. I asked how many could do ten lengths non stop and only four said they could. If I taught in a more middle class school that number would be higher and that confident naming of basic swimming skills as strong would be less certain. The same kids couldn’t do a tumble turn, swim fly etc but they thought themselves good swimmers. Two of my kids consider themselves poor and disinterested swimmers but could do the above and have swum in lakes and seas. They had years of lessons as children.

The cost of swimming lessons, the small place it has in the curriculum, the price of swimming sessions (and the often poor availability because of lessons for parents who can pay …) all contribute to these situations. Socioeconomic status influences these outcomes. No group of working class teen is forking out a £10 a head to swim in a lake with a life guard so I hope more people keep ignoring the don’t swim signs as if it had been a day when a stout group of middle aged experienced outdoor swimmers were around disaster may well have been averted. I too have found young groups generally receptive to safety advice - not so much the kids jumping into a Liverpool canal from the locks while adults watched on and said nothing! It’s more swimming we need all round with more education and investment. The only water safety I have seen in schools has been visits a from bereaved parents sharing their tragedies and it shouldn’t be their job.

Ok, but this isn’t what the op is worried about…

Have you not heard of cold water shock?