Barriers & Boundaries: ABCD's of Water Safety
As summer approaches, water safety becomes a growing concern for parents of young children. We all want our children to be safe and have fun in the water! While it can be intimidating to read all the facts about children and drowning, Swim Kids Waco is committed to equipping families with the tools needed for creating a safe environment around the water, whether you’re at home or on vacation. Our new blog series will teach you the ABCD’s of Water Safety. Click here to read the first post: A is for Adult Supervision
B is for Barriers & Boundaries
Our second area of water safety covers two important aspects: physical barriers and family boundaries.
BARRIERS
Barriers are your first line of defense! If you have a pool at home, install a fence around the pool with top locks, door alarms, etc. Each of these elements adds another layer of protection for your children AND other children, whether visitors to your home or neighborhood kids.
Do your research. According to CDC.org, the protection from a four-sided isolation fence (one that separates the entire pool area from the house and yard) can reduce a child’s risk of drowning by 83% versus a three-sided property-line fence (one that encloses the entire yard, but does not separate the pool from the house).
Even if you don’t have a pool, it’s important to be aware when you’re over at a friend or family member’s house that DOES have a pool. Are they vigilant water watchers? Do they have barriers in place?
BOUNDARIES
Starting when they’re little, teach your children healthy boundaries around water.
Teach kids to always ASK even before they TOUCH the water.
Create a family code that signals your child has permission to get in and you are ready to supervise. It can be something silly like “Mama T-Rex is ready to watch!” or it can simply be eye contact and saying “Yes, [name], you may get in the water.”
Enforce your boundaries! If you give only warnings for breaking boundaries, children will come to expect warnings. Explain the expectation, and then find a logical consequence that you can enforce. Enforce it the first time the boundary is broken and any subsequent time. Let the consequence do the teaching. (We think the book Parenting with Love and Logic is a great resource that will help you create and enforce boundaries around the pool and offer many other parenting tools. The authors also wrote Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood specifically for young kids and gives really practical ideas for enforcing boundaries with little ones. It’s one of our favorite parenting books!)
Remember, barriers and boundaries are some of the things you can start incorporating now before you’re even near the water!