Swim Season is Around the Corner

Before I went to bed last night, I was on latimes.com and read a headline about a six-year-old girl who drowned in her family's swimming pool during Memorial Day festivities.  I googled it to get the whole scoop and found a brief article about the incident on ABC7.com.  Can you imagine the heartache and profound loss that family is experiencing right now?

The timing was uncanny, but my daughters started swim lessons today - not because I'm starting them young on a path to become olympians, but because we live in S. California and they are around swimming pools quite a bit.  My girls are 3 and 4, so by the end of the swim course, the instructor said they should be able to put their heads underwater, open their eyes, and "swim" to the nearest wall or step.  This is really all they need - survival skills.  Incidents like the one that happened in La Canada on Memorial Day should remind us all to be on hyper-alert when our children are remotely near bodies of water.  Remember to talk to your kids about water safety and always keep these important reminders from the Red Cross in mind.

• Children should be supervised at all times in the water (this includes baths).
• Your backyard pool should have a fence at least 5-feet high that self latches to keep children from entering without an adult present.
• Keep a phone poolside to avoid leaving children unattended if you get a phone call.
• Don't use floatation devices as a substitute for supervision.
• Remove toys from the pool that might that interest young children.