My mom is terrified of water. She grew up on farm in the middle of the prairie and didn’t really have the opportunity to learn to swim. Honestly, she didn’t really need to learn. But she didn’t want her children to be saddled with the same fear of water.
Not only did she want us to have fun in the pool, she also wanted to equip us with the skills to be able rescue ourselves if we fell in a creek.
Swim Safety for Kids
I wanted my daughter to grow up comfortable in the water. We started with a parent and me class at the local YMCA so she could have fun playing in the pool. But as much as I want her to enjoy splashing, I want her to be equipped to be able to rescue herself if she is every accidentally in the water.
My daughter has graduated to weekly lessons where they equip even the youngest swimmers with the tools to get themselves to safety if they fall in the pool. I am so grateful that she is learning swimming skills.
Up until a couple weeks ago, I didn’t really think about swim safety as an adult. Then, I was reminded in a very big way how important it is to understand your own swim skills.
Swim Safety for Adults
My friends and I got together for a girls’ weekend. We bravely put on our bathing suits and rented tubes for a leisurely drift down a river. Only it wasn’t as leisurely as it normally was. Our hostess hadn’t accounted for spring rains making the river higher and faster. One of our friends was very aware of her limitations and wore a life vest. The other three of us didn’t. At one point there were some rapids and one of my friend’s rafts capsized.
The current was really strong, and our friend had trouble keeping her head above water. Fortunately, she is a strong enough swimmer that she was able to get out of the current and swim to the shore.
Knowing Our Abilities
Later we laughed about our hostess overestimating our abilities to handle tubing on a lazy river. But it really did make an impression on me about how important not only learning how to swim is, but also recognizing your swimming abilities. What if our friend who didn’t know how to swim didn’t wear the life vest because no one else was? What if she had been the one to fall out of her raft and wasn’t wearing a flotation device?
Swim safety isn’t just a big deal for our children, it’s also a big deal for our fully grown family and friends. Some people, like my mom, have never learned how to swim. Others aren’t as cautious as my friend who insisted on wearing a life vest for a lazy river float trip.
