Where Do Children Drown?
In the U.S., a disproportionate amount of press is given to children drowning in swimming pools, and while it’s true that children ages 1-5 are most likely to drown in swimming pools, it’s not the whole story, and I think it gives parents a false sense of security about water safety. It’s important to know the different dangers, and how to teach your children to navigate the dangers at any age.
So, let’s look at where children are most likely to drown at different ages and what you need to know:
Age: For infants, birth to one year, bathtubs pose the greatest danger. The statistics don’t break it down by months, but I’d guess it’s as soon as your baby can sit upright unsupported that you feel you can dash out of the bathroom to grab clean jammies, answer the phone, or stop a fight between your older kids. Or maybe you think they are safe in that bath seat with the suction cups on the bottom. Or you put the baby in with an older sibling who, you are sure, will raise the alarm if necessary.
Solution: Never, ever leave your child alone in the bathtub until they can swim the length of a 25m pool. Young children reach for toys and fall over. Those seats tip over – never trust them unless you are in the room, or don’t buy them in the first place. As for older siblings, well, they may feel a bit conflicted about your new bundle of joy and give a gentle push or not call if the baby falls over, but then know they did something wrong and not want to get in trouble. It takes one minute of submersion for brain damage to begin and two minutes to die.
Age: 1 to 5 – swimming pools.
Solution: Check out www.poolsafely.gov for great trips on keeping your pool safe. The best rule of all, tell your children to ALWAYS have an adult with them when they go near water. When I had a pool, the rule was no one could even go down the steps to where the fenced pool was without me. Period. This is one limit you need to set and stick to diligently. When your child is in the pool, you need to watch them, constantly. The lifeguard is not there to babysit and since I know you understand how hard it is to keep an eye on one child, imagine a lifeguard trying to watch 200 children. The most important strategy is to talk to your child regularly about how to act around water – no horseplay (dunking isn’t fun, it’s scary and dangerous), always have an adult nearby, and KNOW YOUR LIMITS!
Age: 6 to 12 – open water
Solution: Lifejackets in boats. Again, a non-negotiable rule. But beyond that, again, talk to your child, have them in regular swimming lessons, and help them to KNOW THEIR LIMITS. A tranquil pool is radically different from the wave pool at a water park or the surf off Santa Monica. For complete guidelines, Seattle Children’s Hospital is cutting edge. (insert link: http://www.seattlechildrens.org/classes-community/community-programs/drowning-prevention/open-water-guidelines/ )
Age: 13 to 18 – alcohol
Solution: It’s not just drinking and driving you need to be worried about, it’s drinking and drowning. Alcohol is the greatest contributing factor in drowning deaths for teenagers. By now, hopefully, you’ve been talking to your teenagers about the dangers of mixing alcohol and heavy machinery, you need to add in what happens when you mix with water. And again, teach them to KNOW THEIR LIMITS around water because teenage bravado, alcohol and water are an unforgiving combination.
All fairly dismal statistics, but as you know, I’m all about JOY! in the water. If you are teaching your child, from birth, to navigate water respectfully and safely, while they have fun, you have given them the greatest gift of all, you have taught them to navigate their environment independently and intelligently – and isn’t that what parenting is all about?
6 Layers of Protection That Keep Your Child Safe Around Water
How many layers of protection does the child in this photo have? Coat to prevent against the elements? Check. Securely buckled into an approved car seat? Check. Extra blanket for warmth? Check. A car that has passed stringent safety tests? Check. But the most important layer is the one you can’t see – he is constantly being taught to always buckle up when he is going in a car – by your actions and possibly by your words. We can make our children’s environment safe by using car seats, safety belts, airbags and cars with good crash-test ratings, but unless we teach a child why those things exist and how to use them, we are only doing half the job of protecting them in the future.
‘Layers of protection’ is the buzzword of choice for drowning prevention. It makes sense for exactly the same reasons we teach children to buckle up. Young children are learning self-control and cause-and-effect – our job is to keep them safe while they are learning, but also to teach them how to be safe, and why, at the same time.
To keep your child safe around water, here are the basic layers of protection you need.
- Never leave a child unattended in the bathtub. Personally my rule-of-thumb is that they must excel on a swim team or choose to shower instead of bathe before this rule ends.
- If you have a pool, fence the pool. Not the yard, the pool. Look at installing self-closing gates, door alarms and pool alarms as an added layer of protection. Safety Turtle is a great portable choice for holidays and trips to Grandma’s.
- Always watch your child near water. Assign an adult to be a ‘Water Watcher’ for 10 minutes, give them a whistle, badge or a sign to hold to remind them that their only job is watching the kids, then rotate so that no one loses focus or misses out on the adult fun.
- Empty and turn over buckets, wading pools and anything else that can collect water. Think about covering any ornamental pools or bird baths while your children are under 5.
- Learn CPR, because drowning happens in under 2 minutes in under 2 inches of water. Accidents do happen. Your local Red Cross or Park District will have classes.
- The most important layer though is teaching your child how to be safe around water. Talk to them about why there are fences, why you are watching them, why they need an adult around whenever they are near water – back up your actions with explanations. There is a book about water safety that young children (under 5) love, that can help you with this conversation. It’s called ‘Jabari Makes A Splash’.
With everyone of these actions you are sending two positive messages that will keep your child safe their whole life: Water is fun and you need to act responsibly and safely around water.
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Jabari, which means “brave” in Swahili, is a cute and lovable lion cub. Like most young children, he’s energetic, enthusiastic, curious, and sometimes even a bit mischievous. But Jabari always wants to do the right thing. Children will easily relate to him and want to emulate his positive behavior. Through Jabari’s stories and adventures, children will learn how to be safe in the water. And parents will learn the biggest lesson of all: Always watch your children while they’re in the water. ‘Jabari Makes A Splash’ is available on Amazon.com or at www.jabariofthewater.com.
Einstein Your Thinking and Keep Your Child Safe Around Water
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” …Albert Einstein
Sometimes the usual methods just aren’t as effective as innovative ways of teaching.
Ballroom dance can teach students how to respect the opposite sex. Huh? Ballroom Dancing? Yes. Watch “Mad, Hot Ballroom” or “Take the Lead” to learn how schools in New York are using ballroom dance classes to help improve children’s self-esteem and to teach respect for the opposite sex.
One child drowns every minute. Drowning is the leading cause of death globally for children ages 1-4. Yet conventional wisdom says that we need to keep young children away from the water until they are old enough for swimming lessons. The problem? Toddlers are escape artists. It takes only 2 minutes to drown. True coordination for swimming rarely occurs until children are about 5. And we, rightfully so, make water fun for children from the time they are babies and then don’t teach them how to be safe in the water. We give them mixed messages and we wait too late. Water safety isn’t just swimming or avoidance.
Don’t fall into the trap of following conventional wisdom when it comes to water safety. Young children need to be taught how to relate safely to the water the same way they are taught to cross the street safely. Positively, repetitively, and age-appropriately. Start when they are infants – teach them to never go near water without an adult. Show them their limits in the water by gradually introducing them to the water and teaching them how to hold on and turn around, do monkey hands around the side of the pool, and how to push off the bottom of the pool to grab the side.
Contact your local YMCA about Parent and Me swim classes or use the book Jabari Makes A Splash to talk to young children about water safety. Start when they are very young.
Listen to Einstein.
World Record Swim in Honor of Childhood Drowning Prevention
Don Walsh is an extraordinary man by anyone’s 
definition. Mentor to Navy SEAL candidates, 3-tour Vietnam War Veteran, coach for minority women’s triathalon teams, guitarist, water safety author, husband, and father. He’s been a serious open water swimming competitor for three decades, including circling Key West (12.5 miles), Manhattan (28.5 miles) and the Isle of Jersey (41.5 miles). Did I mention he also has a day job, inspecting bridges for the County of Monmouth?
Don is truly a ‘good guy’ and a great role model for kids. His incredible spirit and generous heart have moved him to dedicate a personal milestone to raising awareness about saving kids from drowning.
In what we believe will set a world record, Don will kick off his 11th year of consecutive monthly open water swims in honor of Childhood Drowning Prevention Month. On May 1st at 1pm, Don will plunge into the Atlantic at Brielle Road Beach in Manasquan, New Jersey.
Help us to raise awareness by spreading the word. Share this on Facebook, tweet it, tell your friends, forward it to your local press.
One child drowns every minute. We can change that. Help us spread the word.
How can a child drown without being in the water???
Do you remember the story about the boy in South Carolina who died of dry drowning last summer? My first thought was ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing…’, the response 
echoed by most parents I talked to as that frightening story made it’s way around the neighborhood grape-vine. I’ve been working on drowning prevention for a couple of years now, so I know all the scary statistics – that drowning is the second leading cause of death in children in virtually all developed countries, that it happens fast and silently and frequently at home – in the pool, the bath, a bucket. The idea that you could drown without being in the water, up to 24-hours later, was really frightening to me so I did a little research to find out more, the excellent web-site http://children.webmd.com was especially helpful.
Dry drowning is drowning without water – or more specifically, drowning 1-24 hours after a small amount of water has entered the lungs. Too much water and you have the drowning we all recognize, less and you have dry drowning. So, when should you be worried about dry drowning? First and foremost, watch your kids when they are in the water. Drowning can happen in as little as 2 minutes of being unsupervised – that’s faster than you can run to the restroom, catch up with your friend on the phone, handle a crisis in the nearby sandpit or grab yourself a caffeinated drink from the snack bar. If someone comes up sputtering and coughing, keep an eye on them and if that coughing continues for more than a few minutes, or it just doesn’t seem right to you, you should call a doctor. Same for shortness of breath or complaining of chest pain – though I’m guessing that with young kids that may come out as ‘my tummy hurts’, since they are a bit fuzzy on anatomy. Keep an especially close eye on kids with asthma, they are more susceptible. If your child is disoriented or lethargic, or if your parenting instincts are saying ‘this just isn’t right’, best to get them to an emergency doctor right away. I’m not a doctor either, when in doubt always get a professional opinion.
So how can kids get in trouble? Certainly all the obvious ways that kids get a mouthful of water – dunking, water fights, going off a fast slide and getting momentarily disoriented. Far less obvious is the young child who can’t swim or any child that is not a confident swimmer – they may have just taken in too much water even if they were never out of their depth.
The best thing to do? Teach your children water safety from infancy. Get your kids in swimming lessons from toddler-age onwards – swimming and water sports should be fun, healthy, life-long skills. Learn CPR. And most important, watch them like a hawk whenever they are in the water – 2 minutes can be the difference between life and death.
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