Watch the “R” – You Can’t Make It Safe to Be Around Water, but You Should Make It Safer
We can be distressed by the statistics about death caused by drowning, or we can we can do something about it. Living in Florida means there’s water all around us. We choose to live here because of a lifestyle – and it means we must accept certain responsibilities. Few are more important than protecting our children. This protection must come with an understanding that it’s impossible to make it safe for them to be around water – we can only make it safer. Here are ways to do it.
Table of Contents
Watchful Eyes
As adults, we make sure there’s a designated driver when we decide to go out for a night on the town. How can we apply this approach to making it safer for our children to be around water? One way – a powerful way – is to follow the SAFER 3 initiative and appoint an adult water watcher whenever children are near water. The water watcher has just a single responsibility. Their only qualifications? Know how to swim, and be able to help someone who is in trouble in the water without putting themselves in danger. Here’s more about how adult supervision in the water can keep children safer.
The Safer Three
Semantics, the study of meaning in language, tells us something interesting about safety. In most cases adding the the suffix “er” to a word amplifies it. Fast is better when it’s faster. It’s especially true when it it comes to the word safe as it applies to water and your children. There’s simply no way to guarantee that children are free of risk or danger near water – and it’s why we must strive, instead, to make it safer for them. There are three main areas of focus.
How to Save a Life
Learning how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a quick and easy skill that can help you save lives. Even if you haven’t been formally trained, you’ve probably seen it done so many times on TV that you could probably do the necessary chest compressions – and that alone can prevent a fatality. But, did you know that there’s a different set of rules for child CPR?
Written in the Sand
There’s Instagram’s concept of the beach, and then there’s reality. Beaches look safe and gorgeous even without the Clarendon, but there are many lurking dangers – especially for young children. Mother Nature – and not the lifeguard – is in charge here, and not everything is as it appears. We need a different approach to safety when we head to the beach.
There's No Place Like...
It’s home turf. We feel safe. There’s a natural tendency to relax when we’re in our homes because it’s often where we have the most control over what happens. Home is where the heart is, but it doesn’t make it any less possible for drowning accidents. A small child can drown in as little as three inches of water. Here’s a primer for parents – especially those with home pools – to help keep water safety top of mind in the home.
A False Sense of Security
What do cigarettes and children’s floaties have in common? Using either one poses so much danger that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends against it. In the case of floaties, they can send the wrong signals to children about being safer in the water. They’re a poor and dangerous substitution for proper substitution. Here’s what you should know about floaties and your kids.
All Aboard
Asking “why” is isn’t always a sign of rebellion. The world is full of new concepts that a child must learn to fit into their worldview. Think of how difficult it is for your young children to understand the danger that boating poses if they don’t practice safety. We learn best through storytelling, and it’s a powerful way to help your children understand the “why” behind following safe boating rules.
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