Chicago Drowning Related Deaths Up Among Children

According to the Chicago Sun-Times ten children under the age of 17 have drowned in the Chicago metropolitan area since summer begin.  There were 15 drowning related deaths of children and adults in Chicago during the whole year of 2011.

What does this mean? It means that more parents should be teaching their kids how to swim at earlier ages.  The ages have ranged from toddler to fifteen year olds.  Granted, some of those kids knew how to swim.  They were in a lake and wind conditions was more of a factor but if they knew proper swimming techniques...who knows.

Making sure your children are equipment to handle small to large bodies of water is very important.  Its an investment that will always pay off.  This especially applies for parents who have a swimming pool in their backyard.

Imagine how many young children have drowned in the backyard swimming pool. They were not being supervised for a brief moment, stumbled in and never came out alive. To be fair many of the parents of those kids were not negligent.  They did a great job at watching their son or daughter 99.9% of the time.  But, perhaps, maybe the phone rang or the pizza man came to the door.

In many cases the father or mother falls asleep without realizing it. How do you think they feel when the wake up to the horror of what has happened?  How do you think they feel?

Each swimming lesson will cost anywhere from $60-$90 depending on where you are and what season it is.  It takes 2-4 lessons for a child to adequately know how to swim.  That means that it will take $400 for a child to learn all the techniques about swimming including all the information he needs about water safety.

That might seem expensive but what is your child's life worth?  Those parents probably consider that cost fairly cheap now, in hindsight.

When you know your child can swim does that mean you do not have to watch him/her.  Absolutely not!  But you can rest easier.  And if you were to fall asleep and your 3 year old stumbles into the pool then you might just wake up with a wet toddler in front of you instead of a dead one.

My advice: start early.  Your kids can start learning how to swim as early as age one. Start as soon as possible.  Why wait?  There is no reason why any child in Houston or this country should die by drowning.