A swimming pool can provide your family with countless hours of outdoor enjoyment. If you aren't careful and don't enforce strict pool rules, however, it can also present a danger to your children and their friends. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one out of every five drowning deaths happens to children under age 14. Even non-fatal swimming pool accidents can result in brain damage and lifelong consequences. Thus, it's crucial for every swimming pool owner to provide children with rules to follow when spending time by the pool.
Supervision
Your children should never go swimming without adequate adult supervision. Stipulate that, in your absence, neighborhood children are also not to swim without an adult being present to supervise. Even the best young swimmers aren't invulnerable to injury, and children may not realize that a playmate is injured and needs emergency attention. Installing a fence around your swimming pool will further discourage children from wandering into the pool area unsupervised.
No Running
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that swimming pool owners forbid running in the pool area. Pool decks and surroundings are often covered with water for long periods of time. Water not only makes many surfaces more slippery, it encourages the growth of mold and mildew that can also cause slippery surfaces--especially if your pool deck is wooden rather than concrete. Requiring kids to walk rather than run when playing in the pool area reduces the chance that a child will fall and injure himself.
Storms
Children should evacuate the swimming pool when lightning is a possibility. Water is a conductor of electricity, making a swimming pool a deadly place to be should lightning strike the water's surface. The National Lightning Safety Institute notes that swimming pools are connected to an underground network of pipes. If lightning strikes the ground anywhere in the vicinity of this network, the current could be transferred to the swimming pool and result in electrocution.
Glass Containers
While children enjoy bringing drinks and snacks to the pool, it is imperative that you not allow children to bring glass containers or breakable plates into the pool area. Glass in and around your swimming pool can injure, not only children, but adults as well.
Pool Toys
While children find it entertaining to play with foam and air-filled toys and flotation devices in the water, requiring children to put away the pool toys after use can prevent injury. The CDC notes that pool toys in open view may tempt children to enter the pool area unsupervised. In addition, asking a child to put away her pool toys teaches her to clean up after herself, which is an important lesson, both indoors and out.
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