How long are your arms?

OPINION
Submitted by Karen Bagnell,
HRM Aquatic Services
The kids are crawling the walls, there's snow on the ground and everyone has cabin fever, especially mom. Someone suggests swimming, the frenzied search for goggles begins and in no time the van is loaded. Ten minutes later mom is calm, coffee in hand, book in face. Does she see when her youngest runs along the slippery deck and falls into the pool? Nope, but the lifeguard, who happened to be scanning that zone at just that moment does, pulls her out and saves the day.
"Parents have for too long been lackadaisical about supervision at our waterfronts and pools," says John Henry, HRM Aquatics Coordinator. Though Nova Scotia Environment and Labour recommends one guard to every 50 people, HRM uses a 1 to 25 ratio - but it still remains a busy job just keeping track.
"Our lifeguards provide an excellent safety net for our patrons and are there to ensure that everyone is safe and dangers are eliminated, but on any given day they watch much more than one child," Henry explains.
More and more aquatic organizations recognize the need to educate patrons that supervision is a team effort and not the sole responsibility of lifeguards. In 2007 The Royal Life Saving Society of Australia launched a campaign that addressed concerns of poor-parental supervision. Their Keep Watch@Public Pools campaign was designed specifically to educate and encourage adequate, active supervision of children by parents while visiting public pools.
Campaign support materials advocate that "lifeguards are not babysitters" rather their jobs are to provide a safety role, not replace direct supervision by parents. The program also identifies the three key elements of supervision as proximity (stay within arm's reach of your child), attention (keep it on your children and not your book), and continuity (checking on your children on a regular basis and never leaving their presence, especially if they are under five).
It seems that parents are not paying as much attention as even they think they are when visiting a pool or waterfront. Safe Kids USA, whose mandate is to prevent accidental childhood injuries, discovered through a 2004 survey that 94 per cent of parents surveyed reported they always actively supervise their children while swimming.
Sounds pretty good. Except for the fact that with deeper examination of surveyed parents it was found that they participated in a variety of distracting behaviors while supervising such as talking to others, reading or talking on the phone. The survey also reported that one in five parents believed that when lifeguards are present, the lifeguard is the main person responsible for supervising children in the water - not an easy task, given that the typical lifeguard to swimmer ratios are 1 to 25 or as high as 1 to 50.
The survey concluded that "parents are overconfident about their children's safety and abilities around water," and went on to say that "although drowning is the second leading cause of injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14, more than half of parents say that they do not worry much or at all about their child drowning."
Among the recommendations given by Safe Kids USA were: adults must increase the quality of their supervision around water (nearly nine in 10 deaths reviewed occurred while the child was being supervised), more children should be enrolled in swimming lessons taught by certified instructors, caregivers should enforce consistent use of PFDs (personal flotation devices) in potentially hazardous situations, supervisors should maintain continuous visual and auditory contact with children, should not engage in distracting behaviours and should keep those who cannot swim within arm's reach.
Similar recommendations are also included in a Manitoba Health paper titled Preventing Drowning in Manitoba. In that document, under Organizational Support for Drowning Prevention Strategies, 14 organizations including the Canadian Pediatric Society, the Canadian Red Cross, Safe Kids Canada and the World Health Organization, all agreed that "constant, arms-length adult supervision in, near and around water" was of highest importance.
So go to the pool, it's excellent exercise for you and your kids, bring your bathing suit and not your book, stay attentive and when your son yells over and over and over "watch this Mommy" - do it!
And then keep on doing it - but within arm's reach, please.