Kids swimming alone

[lovinmaryland]

I heard about this on the news last night...and supposedly her parents were at the pool.

DC Pool Closed After Child Drowns | ABC 7 News

Just terrible!

Stick with your rules, we have an adult must be present rule also.
Have you talked to the other parents? Maybe their kids are "hoping to be dry" when they get home also.

By the way, who's pier are we talking here?

Could be, but several of the parents swing by the pier to tell their kids to come home. They are in the water at the time :shrug: maybe they assume that if their is an adult on the pier that they will watch them.

Our neighborhood pier.

 

[poster]

Just terrible!


Could be, but several of the parents swing by the pier to tell their kids to come home. They are in the water at the time :shrug: maybe they assume that if their is an adult on the pier that they will watch them.

Our neighborhood pier.

Swimming from the pier if VERY dangerous, I'm assuming they're jumping off it. You have no idea what's under it and the tides/weather can change what's there regularly.

 

[Venn]

I am 42 and I never swim alone!

 

[MDTerps]

I took my son (12) and nephew (16) to the pool a few weeks ago. I had to yell at the 16 yr old to let my son go b/c he kept dunking him under water. He would let him back up but not long enough to catch he breath for the next dunk.

Unless your sure the kids won't horse play then nope not going alone. Def. not going alone off a pier.

 

[LusbyMom]

I still make my kids (12, 10, 9) wear life jackets in dark water My brother lives on the water and they will dive off the pier all the time but only with life jackets on and with an adult around.

They get mad at me when we go to Lake Anna and jump off the boat.. but I don't care they are wearing life jackets even though we are all right there. Sometimes I think the kids are actually watched less when more people are around. Everyone thinks that everyone else is keeping an eye out.

A pool is different they can jump in 13 feet of water all day long.. at least when they go under I can still see them.

 

[Nanny Pam]

Granddaughter is 12. She swims in my pool, but I'm always in the yard with the daycare kids. Most of the time, I swim with her. Ahhhhh felt good today, too!

 

[CalvertNewbie]

Off a pier? NFW Especially with NO adults. Kids are idiots most of the time.

I agree! Kids mess around all the time in the water, having a good time, not fully respecting the water as they should.

I know this isn't Long Island, NY (where I'm orginally from) but I still read the news from back home. In the past 2 weeks there have been about 10 drownings up there. A couple have been in the ocean but the majority have been in a residential pool. After continuously reading about all these drownings, there's no way in hell I'd let a pre-teen kid swim off a pier unsupervised. I remember going upstate NY every summer with my Grandma and being annoyed that she wouldn't let us swim in the lake without an adult present. Now I understand why!

 

[cattitude]

I still make my kids (12, 10, 9) wear life jackets in dark water My brother lives on the water and they will dive off the pier all the time but only with life jackets on and with an adult around.

They get mad at me when we go to Lake Anna and jump off the boat.. but I don't care they are wearing life jackets even though we are all right there. Sometimes I think the kids are actually watched less when more people are around. Everyone thinks that everyone else is keeping an eye out.

A pool is different they can jump in 13 feet of water all day long.. at least when they go under I can still see them.

I sure hope you mean jump. Never ever ever dive off a pier or into dark water.

 

[shagger]

There go all of you over-protective parents again. Accidents will happen with or without adult supervision. Let the kids be kids. Some 8 year olds are more responsible than 16 year olds. As a parent, you should know when it is the right time for YOUR child to swim alone, stay home alone, drive alone, have sex alone, etc. If you continue to be overbearing, your kids will never learn responsibility.

 

[DEEKAYPEE8569]

There go all of you over-protective parents again. Accidents will happen with or without adult supervision. Let the kids be kids. Some 8 year olds are more responsible than 16 year olds. As a parent, you should know when it is the right time for YOUR child to swim alone, stay home alone, drive alone, have sex alone, etc. If you continue to be overbearing, your kids will never learn responsibility.

Besides weird; what's it called if an adult is supervising?
"Apprenticebating"?

 

[Cowgirl]

I still make my kids (12, 10, 9) wear life jackets in dark water My brother lives on the water and they will dive off the pier all the time but only with life jackets on and with an adult around.

They get mad at me when we go to Lake Anna and jump off the boat.. but I don't care they are wearing life jackets even though we are all right there. Sometimes I think the kids are actually watched less when more people are around. Everyone thinks that everyone else is keeping an eye out.

A pool is different they can jump in 13 feet of water all day long.. at least when they go under I can still see them.

Wow, you are a risk taker. My coworker lost an eye after swimming in that nasty water!

 

[poster]

There go all of you over-protective parents again. Accidents will happen with or without adult supervision. Let the kids be kids. Some 8 year olds are more responsible than 16 year olds. As a parent, you should know when it is the right time for YOUR child to swim alone, stay home alone, drive alone, have sex alone, etc. If you continue to be overbearing, your kids will never learn responsibility.

I can agree with you in some instances but 9-13yr olds swimming alone (especially from a pier) is no way to teach/learn responsibility. You are correct accidents will/can happen but an adult should be present to handle one when they occur.

An "accident" under the circumstances the OP is explaining will most likely be a very traumatic event. Kids that age shouldn't be expected to be responsible enough to handle it alone.

 

[LusbyMom]

Wow, you are a risk taker. My coworker lost an eye after swimming in that nasty water!

I have been swimming in that lake since I was 9 years old.. that's alot of years!

 

[Jameo]

Times have changed .
I just hoped I'd be dry by the time I got home

for real Me and my cousin would run across the street and spend all day at the beach w/o any adults around. Swim all day. Try to drown each other, attempt to swim over to Solomons. Throw jelly fish and that nasty stinky mud at each other Man I miss being a kid sometimes

 

[GWguy]

Man I miss being a kid sometimes

I have his posted on my garage door entrance, just because:

RESIGNATION
I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult. I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8 year-old again.

I want to go to McDonald's and think that it's a four star restaurant.

I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make a sidewalk with rocks.

I want to think M&Ms are better than money because you can eat them.

I want to lie under a big oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summer's day.

I want to return to a time when life was simple; When all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, but that didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't care.

All you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset.

I want to think the world is fair. That everyone is honest and good.

I want to believe that anything is possible. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again.

I want to live simple again. I don't want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, and loss of loved ones.

I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow.

So . . . here's my checkbook and my car-keys, my credit card bills and my 401K statements. I am officially resigning from adulthood.

And if you want to discuss this further, you'll have to catch me first, cause........
......"Tag! You're it."

 

[Jameo]

I have his posted on my garage door entrance, just because:

love it! If only it was that easy!

 

[RareBreed]

I have his posted on my garage door entrance, just because:

I just sent that to my husband. Reminds me so much of him!

 

[shagger]

I have his posted on my garage door entrance, just because:

AMEN I say to the patron saint of children - St. Nicholas! Oh no - I'm probably going to purgatory for that...

 

[chernmax]

Supervised 0-17

Unsupervised? 30!!!

 

[Sonsie]

Wow. I grew up in Upper Michigan across the street from Lake Michigan. I don't remember how old I was but I never remember my parents actually taking me to the beach. As soon as the training wheels were off my bike me and my pack of little friends were about living at the lake, unsupervised, all summer. I had to be home for supper and that was about the only rule. The 70s were a great time to grow up, before everybody got so paranoid.