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4 Safety Features Every Pool Has to Have

Most of the time, teaching your kids to swim will involve a pool. Whether you’re at a friend’s pool, a commercial pool, or your own pool, make sure the pool has these four safety features before you start a swimming lesson.

A Fence

Pools should be fenced, and the gate leading to the pool should always be closed.

Barriers and alarms aren’t foolproof safeguards. They’re designed to give you a little more time to look for a missing child before the child can accidentally—or with some effort—get into the pool. They’re not a substitute for supervision.

If you have a pool, install a four-sided pool fence that’s at least four feet high, with self-closing, self-latching, outward-opening gates and latches higher than kids can reach. Fences need to prevent kids from getting over, under or through them. They shouldn’t have anything a child could use as a foothold or handhold for climbing. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission provides detailed information about the specific structure of fences.

Consider getting an alarm that sounds when the gate to the pool area opens. Make sure the switch for the alarm is locked or out of reach of kids.

A power—not manually operated—safety cover that meets ASTM standards can be used as a layer of protection, but remember that a young child can drown in just inches of water. A pool cover that sinks slightly below the surface of the water or that has puddles on it can be a drowning hazard even if it prevents a child from getting into the pool.

A Working Phone

Make sure that there’s a working phone near the pool and that emergency numbers are posted.

A Drain Cover

Don’t use a pool or hot tub without a drain cover. If you have your own pool, install a Safety Vacuum Release System, which shuts off the drainage pump if the drain is blocked, preventing kids from becoming trapped at the bottom of the pool by the suction of the drain on their hair, clothing, or part of their bodies.

Glass-Free Surroundings

Don’t use glass of any kind around the pool. Be aware of things made of glass other than the obvious drinking glasses. Don’t use breakable tabletops, lamps, vases, or other furnishings around the pool.

Other Safety Measures

Do everything you can to make sure the pool you use to teach your kids to swim is safe. Other safety measures you can take include:

  • Remove steps and ladders from aboveground pools when the pool isn’t being used.
  • Don’t leave tempting toys in or near the water. Remove them from the pool area when you’re not there. Kids can fall into the pool while they’re trying to reach a toy.
  • Have your pool inspected regularly. Know and clearly mark the electrical cut-off switch for the pool pump.
  • Keep the water level of the pool high enough to make it easy for a small child to reach the edge of the pool and pull himself out.

If you have a pool, check with your local building and planning department about safety standards in your community, and always use common sense when you’re evaluating a pool and its safety.

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How to Motivate Your Kids to Learn to Swim

You have to teach your kids to swim for safety reasons, but what are their reasons for learning to swim? Put yourself in your child’s place. Why learn to do this? For some kids, watching older kids and seeing the potential fun is strong motivation. Kids who don’t have an example like that might be harder to motivate. If you can have a great time running around on land, what’s the point of working hard to learn to swim? What’s in it for them?

Drawbacks of Learning to Swim

The drawbacks of learning to swim are apparent from the beginning. The water’s cold and uncomfortable. Sometimes it smells like chlorine. There may be strangers swimming in the pool. Your kid knows he wouldn’t know what to do if he got in too deep, and that’s legitimately scary. There’s a sense of not having control or feeling in charge of the next moment. There are potentially uncomfortable sensations. Being in the water doesn’t feel like being on land. There’s the possibility of swallowing water—which probably doesn’t taste very good—or getting water in his nose. That possibility quickly becomes uncomfortable and possibly scary reality, because it’s hard to learn to swim without ever swallowing water or getting water in your nose.

Why Learn to Swim?

Kids spend countless hours practicing new skills. They’re relentless. They learn to roll over, sit up, crawl—sometimes backwards, it’s true—walk, and run. These are all driven by another motive. Your child doesn’t want to crawl for crawling’s own sake. He wants to get somewhere. He wants to walk so he can get there faster. Run? Get there faster!

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Benefits

Other forms of movement require different motivation. Some kids (who may be great walkers or runners) may be lousy at skipping or climbing. Why? Where’s the benefit in the movement for them? Swimming is like this. There’s got to be either benefit that comes from the movement or pleasure in the movement itself.

Intrinsic Benefits

You can help your child enjoy the movement itself by pointing out the pleasurable sensations of being in the water and doing what you can to minimize the negative sensations. Make sure to help your child notice the way the water feels against his skin and the weightlessness of buoyancy. Make sure to keep him as warm as possible and to help him drain his ears. These small aspects of enjoying the movement and the water will help to motivate your child to keep getting back into the pool.

Extrinsic Benefits

Swimming isn’t enough by itself? When you’re teaching your kids to swim, you can highlight and set up benefits from the movement. If a game that relies on mastery of a skill is fun enough, your child will work at mastering that skill. If other kids your child admires are doing something, your child will work to do what it takes to join them or be like them. Go to the pool when other, older kids are there. Play games as a family. Show your child the possibilities that are waiting for him once he’s able to swim.

Feeling successful will also help your kids stay motivated when they’re learning to swim. Remember that kids define success differently than adults.

Bribery

If all else fails, you can use external motivation as a teaching tool, depending on what’s important to your child. Will he work for ribbons? How about for a special activity together? Cold, hard cash? External motivation can help get your child over any bumps in the learning road when the experience of swimming isn’t enough to motivate him on its own. Sure it’s bribery, but it’s for a good cause, and your kids will thank you later.

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Time to Play! Blowing Bubbles

Kids learn by playing. The more you can make learning to swim fun for your kids, the more they’ll like it, the quicker they’ll learn, and the more fun you’ll have teaching them. One of the first steps of teaching your kids to swim is to help them learn to blow bubbles.

Blowing bubbles helps kids get used to having their faces in the water and learn to control and be aware of their breath. A game you’ve probably already played a million times can help your kids learn to blow bubbles, and you don’t need a pool to play it.

On land, practice blowing raspberries on each other’s tummies. It’s simple, it’s fun, and it helps kids who haven’t gotten used to putting their faces in the water get a good grasp of what they’ll be doing with their bodies. They’ll be able to practice the new thing—putting their faces in the water—after having mastered the blowing part.

Your ability, as a parent, to play games and practice skills on land that apply to swimming give you a huge advantage when you’re teaching your kids to swim. Your kids will be learning skills they’ll use in the pool without even realizing it, and you’ll all be getting tummy raspberries. What could be better than that?

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5 Common Feelings That Affect How Kids Learn to Swim

The sensory experience of being in the water, as well as emotional associations, leads to a range of feelings your child might have about swimming. Be on the lookout for emotional distress that you can soothe and for opportunities to motivate your child. What are the five most common feelings you can expect to crop up when you’re teaching your kids to swim?

5 Common Feelings That Affect How Kids Learn to Swim

Fear

It’s never too early to help your child feel comfortable in the water. Younger kids—three and four years old—are less fearful than older kids—seven or eight years old—who are being introduced to the water for the first time.

Where does the fear come from?

  • Fear of drowning can come from experience—like having slipped under the water in the tub for a moment—or from peers or the media.
  • Fear can come from feelings of being out of control, confused or uncertain, powerless, or unsupported in the water.
  • Fear can come from picking up parents’ own fear, worry or concerns.
  • For some kids, new things are scary.

Being afraid is reasonable. Until your child has the skills of water safety, the water is a dangerous place. That’s the whole point. That’s why he needs to learn to swim.

Many actors feel stage fright before a performance. A common tool for getting past this fear is to reframe it as excitement. You can help your child by using this technique. Understand the fear. Address it. Reframe it as excitement.

First, talk to your child to try to isolate the reason for the fear. Next, address his concerns. If he’s afraid that he’ll slip and swallow water, explain that you’ll be holding him and won’t let that happen. If he fears the unknown, explain to him what to expect once he’s in the water, from how it will feel to what you’ll be doing and how long you’ll do it.

Once you’ve addressed his concerns, point out the physical signs of fear that he might be experiencing: increased heart rate, fast or shallow breathing, shivers, tension, a rush of adrenaline. All of those are things that also happen when you’re excited. Have your child focus on what he’s feeling in his body and how he’s felt those same things when he’s been excited about something. Associate the two feelings. It’s hard to stay afraid when you’re aware that your body is responding the same way it does when you wake up on the morning of your birthday party.

Anger

Your child might be angry at being forced to do something he doesn’t want to do. He might feel anger about feeling afraid. He might feel anger in the form of frustration about not being able to physically control his body in the water as well as he’d like to be able to.

If he’s angry at being forced to do something he doesn’t want to do, give him as many choices as possible. “Would you like to go swimming and then to the park or to the park and then swimming?” or “Would you like to swim for fifteen minutes or for twenty minutes?”

If he’s angry about feeling afraid, help him to express the anger and then address the fear.

If he’s frustrated about not having the same degree of control over his movement in the water as he does on land, remind him that it took a lot of practice to learn to walk and to learn to run. Tell him funny stories about those early days. Scale back the skill you’re working on to give him a break from the frustration and an opportunity to enjoy practicing something that he’s already competent doing.

Happiness

Spending time playing in the water with your parents in the warm sun is fun. Don’t gloss over the joy you and your child can share because you’re in a rush to get to the next skill. The spaces between learning new things will be filled with the laughter that becomes memories your child will carry with him for the rest of his life.

Security

Your child will rely on you to set the tone for your time in the pool. If you feel confident and if you provide physical and emotional support, your child will feel secure. That sense of security will make him receptive to what you’re trying to teach and will color his longterm feelings about swimming and the water.

Pride

As your child’s efforts pay off and he learns new things and masters new skills, he’s likely to feel proud. Help to encourage and validate that feeling. Talk about how well he’s doing to other adults in front of him. Give him a forum for sharing that pride.