Tips to Keep Your Child Safe While Swimming

Summer is the season for swimming! With all the fun that this recreational sport provides, it’s still important that your child stays safe while swimming. It is always a good idea to sign your child up for swimming lessons which will help them develop into strong swimmers. Here are some tips on other ways to take the proper safety precautions while your child swims this summer:

In Swimming Pools

• Maintain constant supervision over your child and make sure they swim in areas that are supervised by a lifeguard.
• Enforce that your child must swim with a buddy at all times.
• Teach your child to walk slowly in the pool area. Because the area around the pool is usually wet and slippery, accidents are prone to happen if a child is running in this area.
• If you are at a public pool, always follow pool rules.

In Lakes and Ponds

• Always swim with your child in lakes and ponds. With these bodies of water, it’s usually difficult to see the bottom, so it’s hard to gauge their actual depth.
• Make sure your child is wearing protective water shoes. Lakes and ponds have a tendency of hiding dangerous objects like jagged rocks, broken bottles, and trash.
• If you are going boating, make sure that both you and your child are wearing life jackets.

In Oceans

• When you first get to the beach, ask the lifeguard how strong the waves are. Stay close to your child if the waves start to get rough.
• Always make sure your child is swimming in an area where a lifeguard can see him, and in areas that are specifically marked for swimmers to
• Make sure your child does not swim too far from the shore to avoid getting caught in a rip current.
• Instruct them not to swim close to piers. If a big wave comes suddenly, it could move them, causing them to hit a piling or a rock.
• Teach them to face the waves, rather than turning their back to them. This can prevent a wave from knocking them down suddenly.

In general

• Stay hydrated! Swimming is a sport, after all, and therefore requires a lot of physical effort. It’s important to make sure your child drinks plenty of water regularly.
• Slather them with sunscreen! Make sure to keep reapplying the sunscreen (with a protection factor of at least 15) throughout the day. The sun is at its peak strength between the hours of 10:00 am and 4:00 pm, so it’s best to limit the amount of sunlight you and your child receive during this time frame.
• If your child does not yet know how to swim, make sure that her flotation devices are Coast Guard approved.
• Don’t allow your child to chew gum or eat while he is swimming, as this poses a choking hazard.

At Cranium Academy, we strive to provide a safe and secure environment where our students have the best opportunity to learn, discover, and grow from preschool through elementary school. Making sure that children stay safe outside the classroom is just as important to us. To give kids a break from swimming over the summer, our summer camp programs offer the perfect combination of learning and fun in a safe, welcoming environment. We make safety a priority so that our students can focus on learning and having fun!