Yes, if you read the comments (I assume this one is from dad):
Kids drown in the bath tub too.
Of course, it is dangerous for small children to be in water. That’s why you’re cautioned to ALWAYS supervise them when they are in water (even the bath tub) AND encouraged to give them swimming lessons.
You’re logic is a ittle whacked.
Not until the crocs came in…
I sort of wish I’d learned younger, it would have helped me avoid picking up my sinking reflex (my ex says I think myself out of floating) Although I heard in the past Down’s Syndromes kids here in Belfast were taught to swim at an early age by simply pushing them into the pool :dubious:
I think it’s the father’s logic that’s whack. Their kid is not now “safe” without a lifejacket. That’s a false sense of security.
Shit, it’s my experience that 2-yr-olds aren’t safe WITH a life jacket. Last summer my daughter tripped and went face-first into the water while wearing an appropriate life jacket. I was standing right next to her, in knee-deep water, anticipating her standing up again. She didn’t. She was too top-heavy. I yanked her up. Scared the crap outta me.
I’m not arguing the fringe here. My POV is as mainstream as it gets. Cite, cite, and cite (with lots of numbers).
Geeze. I know those shoes are ugly, but wasn’t aware they were so ugly that they literally scare the crap out of kids.
Yeah, but not all of us live in Australia!
He never said she was “safe” without a life jacket. He did say that if she ever happens to fall in without one, she has a fighting chance. BIG difference.
Face it -the brown cloud is probably anyone’s (toddler or adult) best defense against crocs. But they probably don’t have to teach this technique in swim classes in croc infested locales.
There were no rolleyes in my quote.
Another cite
And, from their Parent Handout (linked from the study)
" There is no research to show that swimming lessons for children younger than 4 years of age will prevent drowning. At this age, children are not old enough to learn how to swim on their own. They are too young to react with water survival skills that would help them in an emergency situation. "
Oh, and there’s this, from here:
“In addition, very young children have swallowed so much water during lessons that they develop water intoxication, which can cause convulsions, shock, and sometimes death.”
One more for you. The American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy paper:
“Drowning is a leading cause of unintentional injury and death in the pediatric age group. In the United States, drowning rates are the highest among children ages 1 through 2 years. In Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas, drowning is the leading cause of death in this age group.”
<snip>
"Infant and preschool programs have been developed by such organizations as the American Red Cross8 and the YMCA.9,12 …They provide enjoyment for parents and children but were not designed to teach children to become accomplished swimmers or to survive independently in the water. Other infant/toddler aquatic programs, however, attempt to develop water survival skills.
Regardless of the program design or focus, infant and toddler aquatic programs are unable to ensure that children will understand water hazards, use appropriate avoidance strategies, or attain program safety goals. Currently, no data are available to determine if infant and toddler aquatic programs increase or decrease the likelihood of drowning. **Programs that claim to make children safe in water or safe from drowning are misrepresenting what is possible and are giving parents a false sense of security about their child’s safety in the water. **"
This has really got me pissed off today.
I think those “teachers” are exploiting babies’ hysteria as a marketing tool. Look at this quote from the Dad:
That explains a lot about why they don’t simply stop when the kid freaks out. The drama is part of their schtick - the hysterical child “overcoming”, “fighting against the odds”. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Bunch of macho, tough-love crap.
Not to ruin your day, Cervaise, but that cracked me up.
Other people have pointed out that the lesson was not merely swimming, but survival (hence the kid being fully dressed; it’s harder to swim that way).
There is a kid who, if she ever does end up in water when she didn’t expect to, knows how to right herself and deal with it even if she’s upset and discombobulated at the time. Most kids–hell, most people under those circumstances panic and flail. And drown.
I wouldn’t have gone to those lengths to make my kids water-safe because I’m pretty landlocked and the odds of any need for water survival are pretty great. But if you did sailing, if you lived near a lake, if you had a back-yard pool, I can see how you’d want the kids to know what to do.
People have drowned in water shallow enough that they could have stood up, because they panicked. Kids who go through whatever this program is and pass the test have learned techniques so that wouldn’t happen.
I don’t get this - how does this prepare a child for a “real world” potential drowning? If the kid were to fall into a pool, she wouldn’t do it over and over and over again. Also, it seems like her face is underneath the water when she’s trying to swim a lot more than it’s above the water.
I think it’s a great idea to get kids to be unafraid of the water, but throwing a toddler into water over and over again doesn’t seem to be the best way of achieving this.
I’m not particularly horrified. But this video does seem like just a marketing scam and doing this to an upset child again and again seems completely unnecessary and more likely to cause swimming difficulties later in life. My son just stopped being afraid of taking a bath two weeks ago because he fell and hit his chin on the side when he turned 12 months (he’s 16 months now) - I can’t imagine what results I’d get from doing this to him and how long it would take for him to get over it. Yikes.
There’s no proof that that’s true. I’ve quote several cites already.
And I’ll tell you that little kids learn and re-learn stuff ALL the time. There’s no “now they’ve got it” moment of competence, on anything. Some days they trip over their own feet!
I don’t have a problem with taking infants and babies into the water - shoot, we took ours into a deep pool for the first time when they were about a year old.
I object to the fact that the kid’s screaming and no one is helping. That’s drama for the parents, and it’s bullshit. The idea that it’s worthwhile because they’re actually learning something (“No pain, no gain”) is not proven.
I guess I saw a different video. The kid I watched was crying for her mom, who was on the side of the pool. She very obviously has been swimming for a while.
Yes, infants do have a swim reflex, but it goes away by about 3 months of age.
The child in the video was at least 2 years old. She (he?) knew to turn over when she was tired. IMO, she wasn’t showing fear of the water, or any sort of fear. She wanted the test to be over. She wanted to go to mommy. She was pissed. She stopped crying at one point, asked a question, and laughed.
Teaching toddlers to swim certainly doesn’t water proof them. It does give them a way to buy a little time if they wander into the pool while mom’s back is turned.
I now live in the Netherlands, where water safety is a Major Issue on the minds of parents. It is the subject of an inordinate number of articles in parenting magazines and so on. This makes a certain amount of sense, given the sheer quantity of water in the immediate vicinity of pretty much everywhere. Not to mention boating and so on. And it is mostly not swimming pools, but natural water which has its own hazards.
There is a national program of swim lessons, with national standards and diplomas and heaven knows what all. Much effort is put into getting every kid in Holland to swimming lessons, and most of the first two years consists of what is, in my mind, not swimming lessons at all. It is water safety lessons.
But it is not considered to be useful to put kids in swim lessons before they are about 4 years old. Some folks do of course but those lessons are about playing in the water and having a good time. The swim lesson folks claim that this has been researched and that prior to that it just isn’t useful and it leads to a false sense of confidence on the part of the parents.
Around here anyway, a child who cried like that during the same test (they do more or less the same test here) would not be either encouraged or possibly even allowed to complete the test. It would be considered that if she was that upset by taking the test in such controlled conditions, considering her “water safe” or even “water safer” would be out of the question. Falling in a freezing cold canal is a lot scarier than performing in a swimming pool with the instructor and your mother nearby.
Around here they lead them along gently until they want to learn the skills so they can take the test.
Of course they do. And wouldn’t we agree that 'tis better that they learn something at least once, rather than not at all? The ‘proof’ you’re looking for (some stat about kids who took these classes then were nearly drowned) is not likely to exist. You see, it isn’t ‘news’ when something doesn’t happen. Any parent has dozens of stories of ‘near misses’, I’m sure. Friend of mine used a walker all the time til the kid took a header down the stairs in it. No news story about that, the kid was fine. So, no data to record.
Can’t view the video, don’t have any idea of how long the kid screams w/o help. Etc. Kids scream. Sometimes there’s a reason, sometimes not. Sometimes it’s 'cause they’re scared, or hurt, or other times, it’s 'cause they’re angry at not getting their way, or not getting parents attention. The fact that they’re screaming is not (to me) proof that there’s a wrong being done.
Well, having watched the whole video, I must say it seems a poorly advised learning technique, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the program I watched in person.
What I saw on the tape does not seem to me to be inspiring a child to confidence. Really well run programs work wonders with real infants, but they are absolutely not like what that video shows.
Tris
With me, it wasn’t a joke. We had a small above-groound pool growing up, and I have lots of pictures of me as a young’un splashing around. I have little fear of water (I’m no fool; I wouldn’t attempt to swim Niagra Falls, or in a hurricane), and honestly can’t remember ever having learned to swim.
As far as the OP goes, lots of little ones are scared of water at first. In spite of my above, I’m sure I kicked up some fuss initially, too, and at a lot younger age than Haydn.
I was also scared, and crying, when I learned to ride a bike. My first time on ice skates weren’t exactly a picnic, and Lord, I nearly shit a brick the first time my Dad took me out in his Ford Pinto to learn to drive a standard, and that was in a deserted parking lot! Later, I was more scared of being in a Pinto than driving a stick.
There’s a lot of things in life we have to learn to deal with, and quite often, it’s terrifying (try filling out your taxes for the first time on your own; thank OG for E-Z!). But most times, there’s a reliable adult on stand-by, just as in the video in the OP.
I see no cause for outrage.