Portable Pools Drowning Study

While it is vital to emphasize safety, the most important safety device ever developed to protect children from accidents in a pool or anywhere else is: a mother. Parents simply must be responsible for children. Whether it is a portable pool, an above-ground pool, an inground pool, a lake, a pond, a river, the bathtub, a bar ditch after a rain, no amount of hysteria and legislation and rules and regulations and government "control" will ever replace a mother who watches her kids. You can have fences, alarms, covers, laws, codes, etc., but parental responsibility is the best safety device ever created for safety for children around bodies of water.

In my opinion, it is time The Today Show, ABC and the Wall Street Journal recognized this fact when writing about safety. You can fence and cover and alarm every pool in every home in a neighborhood, but you can't fence the lake or the river or the world. People have to watch their kids. Cars go down streets. Kids climb trees and ride bikes and swim and fish. Safety is the PRIMARY responsibility of the family, not the government or our industry.

My grandson will be one year old next month. He started swimming lessons Monday, with BOTH parents present at all the lessons. You teach them to swim. And you wantch them every minute around any body of water, natural or artificial. Always. No exceptions. And you have rules about the pool, the street, etc. Safety is never negotiable or slacked off on in the family. Then you will have maximum likelihood of safe kids, and nothing else replaces personal responsibility, rules, and discipline in the home. We, as an industry, cannot warranty fools.

You need to be a member of Pool Genius Network™ to add comments!

Join Pool Genius Network™

Comments

Merry Wise July 13, 2011 at 3:04pm

While it is vital to emphasize safety, the most important safety device ever developed to protect children from accidents in a pool or anywhere else is: a mother. Parents simply must be responsible for children. Whether it is a portable pool, an above-ground pool, an inground pool, a lake, a pond, a river, the bathtub, a bar ditch after a rain, no amount of hysteria and legislation and rules and regulations and government "control" will ever replace a mother who watches her kids. You can have fences, alarms, covers, laws, codes, etc., but parental responsibility is the best safety device ever created for safety for children around bodies of water.

In my opinion, it is time The Today Show, ABC and the Wall Street Journal recognized this fact when writing about safety. You can fence and cover and alarm every pool in every home in a neighborhood, but you can't fence the lake or the river or the world. People have to watch their kids. Cars go down streets. Kids climb trees and ride bikes and swim and fish. Safety is the PRIMARY responsibility of the family, not the government or our industry.

My grandson will be one year old next month. He started swimming lessons Monday, with BOTH parents present at all the lessons. You teach them to swim. And you wantch them every minute around any body of water, natural or artificial. Always. No exceptions. And you have rules about the pool, the street, etc. Safety is never negotiable or slacked off on in the family. Then you will have maximum likelihood of safe kids, and nothing else replaces personal responsibility, rules, and discipline in the home. We, as an industry, cannot warranty fools.
Kirstin Pires June 21, 2011 at 6:25am

Absolutely right, Rex! Too often we react without having the proper information, which just makes things worse. The study concerns primarily the type of do-it-yourself inflatable pool available at Big Box stores. The danger is that these pools can be as large as an above-ground pool or some in-ground pools, but without a professional doing the installation and explaining safety measures and operating procedures, it's a recipe for disaster.

This reply was deleted.

Articles

Portable Pools Drowning Study

Comments

Beautiful Pools