Learn To Swim

This is a precursor to my Life Jacket Rant that I will be posting soon.

I feel very strongly about water safety and I don't take time spent on, in, or near water lightly. I believe that it is a parent's responsibility to ensure that their children can swim. They need to do everything they can to prepare children for the water and help them become as strong a swimmer as possible - this means putting them in swimming lessons. If for some reason they can't afford swimming lessons or they aren't available, then parents should work extremely hard themselves to teach their children to swim.

Teaching children to swim and be comfortable in the water is up there with reading for me. (In Canada it is nice if parents spend a bit of time trying to teach children to skate but I feel like this is not a responsibility or duty since skating is not an essential skill, however reading and swimming are.) Canada is surrounded by 3 oceans, the exact number of lakes in Canada is unknown but there are tons, lots of people have swimming pools, communities have public pools, and many family trips involve water of some kind. Water is a part of our culture and it is dangerous.

A friend posted the article below on facebook and I couldn't believe how much I didn't know about drowning. It is a much more serious problem, in terms of number of deaths, than I had thought and I had no idea what it 'looked like.'

Read: Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning
by Mario Vittone