04/17/2024
Kids need to know their limits around water. If we put them in flotation devices every time we go to the pool, they don’t learn this.
If we do this, here is what they learn instead:
1) Muscle memory for very bad body positioning in the water that will make it EASIER to drown if they find water without the device. Since 69% of young child drownings happen during non-swim times when devices won’t be worn, we should all be concerned about this.
2) Ingrains bad body positioning in the water for them. That makes it twice as hard for them to learn to swim properly and takes twice as long in lessons due to having to correct the ingrained, incorrect positioning.
3) Creates a false sense of safety and security. When the only real experience they have had in the water is with a flotation device on, many young kids don’t recognize that the device is what keeps them floating and believe they are doing it with their own ability. They will then be much more likely to try to go back to the water without their device, thinking they can truly swim when they can’t.
4) Kids often forget that they don’t have the device on and impulsively/reflexively jump in the water because they are so used to the freedom to do so with their devices and then they drown.
5) They teach kids that water is completely safe and that they are free to go into it whenever they want to because they always could with their device on.
Combine all of these.
Using these devices constantly during pool time simply sets our kids up for a drowning to happen. So why do we keep doing it?
Partly, it’s tradition. It’s what was done with a lot of us. But that doesn’t make it right or good.
Partly it’s a generalization of the good message that life jackets are needed in open water. We think, well, if they are good for open water, they are good for the pools too. But they aren’t.
Partly because companies make money off of marketing these devices to parents as “swim aids” when they actually end up making it harder for our kids to learn to swim.
Partly it’s because it’s easier than getting them lessons. Because it’s more convenient or more practical for us than having one-on-one touch supervision with them in the water.
Yes, it is much harder to get in the water with them and teach them the limits of their bodies there. Yes, it’s much harder to get them into lessons.
BUT….
My friends, that device and all of its’ consequences will be the hardest thing you have ever done in your life, if using it in the wrong ways results in you finding your child face down and lifeless in the water, like I did with mine.
That device won’t seem so convenient as you wait in the hospital while your child slowly loses all of their brain functioning and there is nothing that can be done to stop it.
That device won’t be worth fighting to justify when you hold your lifeless child in your arms for the very last time.
Let me be very clear. I’m not judging you if you use/have used devices this way. I didn’t know that they did these things to kids until it was too late for my son. I didn’t know better until my baby was gone.
I used them too and that’s why I’m here, trying to help you find a better way for your babies.
I want you to know better while your babies can still grow up. I don’t want you to live the agony that I do every day. Please hear my heart and take this as love and care for you, and not judgement against you.
Know better than I did. Do better than I did. Keep your babies as safe as you can. Every bit of work to get them there is worth every breath they get to take because you did the harder thing for them.
Trust me on that.
Save flotation devices for open water, like oceans, lakes and rivers, or in uncontrollable environments like overcrowded camps and water parks, where they are genuinely needed and can be used effectively, without teaching unintentional bad habits to our kids.
If your child has a special need that stops them from being able to learn to swim, then of course that also makes good sense to use these devices when around any water.
But aside from the above situations, please stop using them in the pools every time you take your child there.
It’s just not worth it.
