Safety For Swimming Pools And Children

When children think of a swimming pool, it is pretty basic to them what they should do: have a great time by jumping right in. Scream. Splash. Float. Jump. Dive beneath the surface and come up with as much ruckus as possible. For children, it doesn't get any simpler than that.

However, each year 4000 children are injured in backyard swimming pools severely enough to require a visit to the hospital. 750 children in America between the ages of birth and 14 drown each year due to accidents in the pool. Clearly, swimming pools can be dangerous. It is important that we all take swimming pool safety very seriously.

In order to keep children from getting into the pool when they are unattended, you should surround your pool with a solid fence. This will protect your own children, as well as children from around your neighborhood. Children getting into the pool area unattended is the root cause of most drowning incidents. You should contact a contractor or company that does these type of fences, even if it is just for a consult. It is possible to build your own, but you want to make sure that your fence is sturdy and reliable. Your fence should be four feet tall or higher and you should have gates that close on their own as well as latch on their own. The latch should be higher than your child can reach.

Your children should never be unattended. Stepping away from the pool area for one second is usually the one second it takes for an accident to happen. Most drowning accidents happen this way.

With children under the age of five, you should implement the "touch supervision" tactic to insure their safety. It is a very easy strategy to follow. You simply stay within arm's reach of your child. If anything were to occur, you should be able to reach out and touch the child immediately and pull him or her back. Your child may be a very confident swimmer by the age of five, but it may be a good idea to continue to practice this strategy going forward.

Swimming lessons for your child are an absolute must. "Touch supervision" will not be necessary once your child has mastered swimming. You should have an expert in the field train your child in water safety and swimming techniques. This way you can be sure your child will become an expert themselves. Many years from now, they may have to call on the skills that they learned in swimming class. It could save their lives.

In case of any emergency, you should have the necessary equipment for life saving at hand on your pool deck. Children should respect that this equipment is not a toy and it should remain in the proper place at all times.

A ground fault circuit interrupter will be necessary for any electrical devices around the pool to protect swimmers should these devices make contact with the water. Children are usually playful and sometimes forgetful. Children are prone to knocking things down. You will want to remember this when placing devices like radios around the pool. It is better to keep them far away so they won't be accidentally knocked into the pool.

You should have a non slip surface on your pool's deck. Even when you remind children not to run, they often will. A non slip surface will help to cut down on accidental falls and injuries from slipping on the wet deck.