Atlanta physician shares the do’s and don’ts of water safety this spring break

Spring break is right around the corner and that means beach trips, pool outings and lake days. Even if your child’s spring break has already passed, your family might have a plethora of other fun experiences in the water to look forward to in the upcoming months.

But the excitement about this season can also bring anxiety, particularly about keeping your child safe in the water.

“If you’re coming up on spring break, this is a great time to reevaluate your child’s swim skills,” Dr. Sarah Lazarus, an emergency department physician for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

According to Children’s, drowning is the No. 1 cause of death for children ages 1 to 4. Alarmingly, there are 3,500 fatalities from drowning each year on average.

Making sure your child is safe requires a lot of planning and oversight from parents. Here are some of the do’s and don’ts to keep in mind as you cool off this spring break.

Do evaluate their swim skills

According to Lazarus, one of the most common scenarios she sees in her work is a parent overestimating their child’s swimming abilities — or not even knowing what their swimming abilities are.

“Be in the pool with them and see, can they swim 10 yards? Can they swim 25 yards? Can they swim two laps? Can they tread water?” Lazarus suggested.

“Children who may not be great swimmers get a little deeper than anticipated and before [the parents] know it, they look down,” she said. According to Children’s, drownings can occur within 30 seconds and in as little as 1 inch of water.

Do speak up for yourself

Protecting your child in a family member’s pool or on a calm beach day might seem easy. However, pool parties and other group outings near water often create pressure for families. Lazarus believes parents should feel empowered to be honest about their child’s capabilities.

“Don’t be ashamed to be honest about what your child’s swim skills are,” Lazarus said. “Have someone watch them, and make sure they’re in a life jacket at all times. Make sure that the person supervising is aware that your child is not a strong swimmer or maybe a swimmer at all.”

Parents should also work with their children to move past the stigma of being a weaker swimmer, Lazarus says, because the difference can be “lifesaving.”

Don’t rely on just anyone

Not just anybody should be supervising your child in the water. Even with a supervising lifeguard nearby, you should still keep your eye on them.

“Even the lifeguards at a pool are not there to protect your child,” Lazarus told the AJC. “They are there to enforce rules and lifesaving as needed.”

As a general rule, if your child is a beginner swimmer or under 6 years old, they should not be more than an arm’s length away from you in the water, Lazarus says. If your child is older, you should still keep eyes on them at all times — even from a lounge chair a few yards away. And children should never supervise other children unless one of them is a trained lifeguard.

She also stressed the importance of knowing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, better known as CPR. It’s the emergency technique of chest compressions that maintains blood flow to vital organs.

“The No. 1 tool in your tool kit is knowing how to do CPR. That outweighs anything in a first aid kit,” Lazarus said.

Don’t skip swim lessons

One of the best things you can do to promote water safety in your household is getting your child swim lessons. However, the cost often serves as a barrier to this.

According to Lazarus, people of color are more likely to drown because of socioeconomic factors. To combat this, Children’s has a resource list for organizations that provide swim lessons at a lower cost.

And swim lessons are not just for kids.

“It’s never too late to learn how to swim. So, if you have a child getting swim lessons but you as a parent don’t know how to swim, this is a great time for you and them,” Lazarus said. “You are at risk as a caregiver if your child were to get into the water and have an incident.”

Swim lessons are not a perfect fix for drowning, the physician said, but they can be part of the plan and solution. Parents should aim to exercise caution in bodies of water, no matter what the situation is, to keep everyone safe.

“You are your child’s best lifeguard.”