Water safety guidelines that a teenager might read?

[FreeeeeeeeFreeFalling]

Hello. Can anyone signpost me to anything that a teenager might read about water safety, before going off with friends to swim in a lake? They may read a guide, but may not let me talk them through very much because, well, I am deeply irritating to them. Thank you in advance.

I’d ask them to read this - https://ukhsa.blog.gov.uk/2024/08/16/how-to-stay-healthy-while-wild-swimming/

things that are written by adults to appeal to teens are often patronising and awful but this is easy to read without being patronising and helpful.

Thank you @TeenLifeMum - that looks very useful.

I also think I need to find something more on preventing drowning more generally (as well as the hygiene stuff, which that article looks excellent for). This also looks good Water Safety for Teenagers | Royal Life Saving Society UK ( RLSS UK ) but is more a guide for talking with teenagers than something to give them to read...?

Thanks again.

Ask them if they have had an assembly at school, ours get one every year.

Oh that's interesting. No, pretty sure they didn't (we are inland - wonder whether coastal schools do better with that)

Maybe try looking for YouTube videos about it? My teen nieces and nephews are much more likely to watch the video than read the article.

I think this is one of those things where you need to instill it in them over a series of years in a lot of different ways before they get it, unfortunately. I notice we almost never see drowning deaths in the river Thames despite the local population density being so high. I wonder what they are doing differently in London with water safety education?

Ex lifeguard here. Rule number 1, 2, 3, 4….. etc up to 100 for a group of teenage boys is to go to a lake with a lifeguard. Groups of teenage boys and even young men spend their whole time showing off to each other in water, taking silly risks. On no account allow them to swim in a lake without lifeguards.

Possible risks are cold water shock, hidden sharp objects under water, Weil’s disease, e-coli, boats not aware of swimmers, deep water. currents. Essentially all of this can result in death without the backup of a lifeguard.

The RLSS is the organization in the UK that is in charge of water safety. This is their advice:

https://www.rlss.org.uk/blog/open-water-swimming-venues-and-safety

My local swimming lake runs open water swimming safety courses and does it heavily discounted for children and teens if that’s an option. You get in the lake too, so not all theory.

Tiktok has some of the Float to live campaign videos, as does YouTube

And there are various (cheesy) videos local organisations made for drowning prevention week here

I hope the links work - I think teenagers are more likely to watch a short video than read something from a parent. Get them to click on a few water safety links and influence the algorithm so they'll be shown more!

To be extra annoying to him, you could buy a cheap throwline in a bag from Amazon so he's able to help if someone else gets into trouble. Not cool (and hopefully not needed) but maybe the presence of a bright orange squishy thing in his bag will remind him he has a way of helping without risking his own life...

100% what @dizzydizzydizzy writes. I live in a country where summer swimming in a lake is normal. Every year people drown and reasonably often it’s young men. They show off, wrestle, jump off things. At a minimum it should be drilled into the group to look out for each other.

Have a look at your local fire service facebook or tik tok or similar they have short videos with information, or the coastguard or RNLI

That will only work if one of them stays on the shore and acts as lifeguard. Also the person on the shore needs to be able to throw far and accurately enough and the rope needs to be long enough. In practice that is only going to work if the casualty is no more than about 7 or 8m away and is compossd enough to grab the bag.

Sadly there are deaths every year in the bit of the Thames that flows by me.

I think it is much smaller and more accessible than it is in london and maybe gives a false sense of security?

I know anyone who rows has to do the capsize test and prove they can swim a certain distance etc and usually a couple hundred year 9's come to take it-some of them can not swim at all...

Has he been lake swimming before?

Do you know the risks yourself?

If he didnt and wont listen I wouldn't be letting him go....but then also know that teenagers tend to do things anyway, so thats really no use. Unless he is a very well behaved teen.

A course as mentioned above sounds idea, or could you or another "more tolerable to him"family member/friend (dont you just love teenagers)take him out and point out the dangers?

My DS isn't allowed into lakes. But he is, mostly, allowed into the sea. But only because we have instilled water safety from a young age, taught about currents and hes been on a number of water courses. But we live right by it and it was always going to cause issues if he didnt have a clue what to do.

My DN wont listen to my DS about the water but will luckily listen to me when I phone ranting that no they cant go in today the current is ridiculous etc.

We're inland but there's a local river. It doesn't stop them doing stupid stuff like jumping off the bridge into the water but I guess they might at least know what to do if they get into difficulty.

It's the local Fire Brigade who do the assemblies as they're the ones who have experience in retrieving bodies from the water. Maybe ask the school if they could arrange it for next year?