There are many groups that denounce swimming lessons and water safety for young children. It is felt that these little ones can’t possibly learn anything yet most drownings occur in children under age 5.
As a volunteer at a children’s hospital I saw the agony of many family’s go through the process of saying goodbye to a young drowning victim. Some of these children were on ventilators waiting to have their organs harvested to give others a chance at life.
I vowed never to let this happen to my child. When Tim was a year old we enrolled him in a water safety course. The parents had to be in the water with the child throughout the program, which was no problem as it was held in a heated hospital therapy pool. The youngest pupil was 5 months old.
Most people do not realize that when an infant before age 6 months is put face down in the water the baby will instinctively flip on it’s back and cry. After this time they forget the survival technique but are capable of learning it again.
The 12 week long program culminated with the child being put in deep water fully clothed with the expectation that they will float to the side of the pool on their backs and scream the whole time.
Tim got the screaming part right! For 20 minuets my little guy tread water but refused to float on his back. He let everyone withing a 10 block radius that he was not a happy camper. Eventually he floated to the ladder, climbed out and promptly disrobed. He was angry but when he turned 3 a few years later that hard lesson saved his life.
We were on vacation in Las Vegas when we decided to check out the motel swimming pool. I had laryngitis and Tim took off running toward the deep end, knowing full well I could yell at him to stop. He tripped over a towel and went fully clothed into 8 feet of water. There were some guests sitting around that end of the pool but not one seemed to know what to do. Meanwhile, Tim popped out of the water and made his way to the ladder, none the worse for wear. He promptly disrobed and showed me his boo-boo on his ankle when it scraped on the side of the pool.
The following week I went to my volunteer job and encountered another little Timmy, same age, who was underwater for 10 minuets and had suffered permanent brain damage. He also had been visiting Las Vegas.
Shortly after this incident Tim joined the swim team where he swam a mile with everyone else during practice and competed in several local meets. He also began going of the high dive at this time and at 5 was the youngest member of the diving team.
My advice to parents of young children under age 5, especially if you live in a place such as California or Florida where pools are common, invest is a water safety program! Go with your gut feeling and ignore the advice of the so called experts. The sooner a child is acclimated to the dangers of water and how to be safe, the better you as a parent will sleep at night.
