For parents of young children, this summer might be one of the first times your child gets to enjoy being in the water. Whether it’s at the beach, the lake or a backyard pool, keeping your inexperienced kids safe might seem intuitive with life jackets and other flotation devices.
But using swim aids can be the opposite of safety if done improperly.
“When you use a jacket as a swimming aid, it actually will increase the rate of drowning, because it teaches the drowning posture,” Gina Torjak told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, saying the devices create “a false sense of security.”
Torjak, a certified Infant Swimming Resource swim instructor at Aqua Kids Swimming, has been teaching kids from 6 months to 6 years old how to swim for over 18 years. She has seen many success stories and some tragic ones.
Credit: Gina Torjak
Credit: Gina Torjak
According to the swim coach, active supervision and water competency are key to keeping small children safe in the water — not the products that have been marketed as such instead.
What is the problem with flotation aids?
Life jackets and other flotation devices can be great and even vital, but only when used in the correct contexts.
“If they are in an open body of water, they should have a life jacket,” she explained. These should be Coast Guard-approved Type II jackets at the very least, according to Torjak.
However, when swimming in pools, flotation devices can do more harm than good, because it teaches the child to maintain a vertical or “drowning” posture in the water.
“That vertical posture cannot be maintained by a child,” she warns. “A child who assumes that posture cannot hold their buoyancy and they go down instead.”
Instead, Torjak says children should be taught safe swim postures in the water while being held until they are water-competent enough to swim by themselves, so that they know what to do if they are ever in a dangerous situation.
“They can roll onto their back, they can float, they can rest and they can breathe,” she said.
Another dangerous part about relying on flotation devices as swim aids is that most drownings happen during non-swim times.
“They can drown anywhere and it only takes a second,” Torjak warned. “It’s silent, so when they slip into the water, it doesn’t make a sound.”
How can you keep inexperienced swimmers safe in the pool?
While your kids are still learning how to swim fully, there are many ways to enjoy your time with them in private and residential pools.
Touch supervision, meaning always being within arms length of your child while they are in the pool, is a major component of that safety. As your swimmer gets more competent, make sure someone is designated as a “water watcher” so there are always eyes on them.
With private pools, ensure that there are multiple barriers of protection between your children and the water such as fences with locks and gates with alarms to maximize safety.
“For a private pool, what you really see is a lack often in that failure,” Torjak said. “You want to consider barriers and gates with locks on them. Doors locked. That’s where it starts.”
Parents and guardians of young children should also know CPR.
According to the National Drowning Prevention Alliance, drowning is fast, silent and can happen in 20-60 seconds — even in shallow water. The best thing you can do to support the safety of inexperienced swimmers, according to Torjak, is to get them some experience.
“Swim lessons reduce the rate of drowning by 88%,” Torjak told the AJC.
“Babies like to reenact their environment. They’re curious so they learn by doing,” she later explained.
Through water-competency, young swimmers can “self-rescue” in many cases, and the entire family can have a more enjoyable, relaxed time at the pool — without relying on flotation devices.
“It’s marketed for swimming when they are not.”
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