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Dad Field Manual · Field card 52 · OutdoorsIdea · not yet tested

Water-safety rules before summer swimming

Drowning happens fast and is often silent, so the rules need to be settled before anyone's wet. Spend half an hour before the first swim of the summer and you'll have a water watcher, a fitted life jacket for every kid, and four rules everyone can say back.

Time
30 min
Cost
$0
Ages
3 to 12
Where
Backyard or poolside

What you need

  • A U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jacket for each kid, sized by weight
  • An index card or piece of cardboard for the water watcher card
  • Markers and a hole punch with string or a lanyard
  • A sheet of paper for the rules

Before anyone gets wet

  • Drowning happens in seconds and is often silent, so you can't count on hearing it. Watch closely and constantly, with no phone, no book and no alcohol.
  • Floaties aren't life jackets. Water wings and inflatable or foam toys can deflate and aren't safety devices. Use a U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jacket that fits.
  • Young kids stay within arm's length, with an adult in the water with them. Swim lessons help, but kids who've had them still need close supervision.
  • Learn CPR. CDC says your CPR skills could save someone's life in the time it takes paramedics to arrive.

Steps

  1. Explain the water watcher. Explain that one adult watches the water at all times, with no phone, swapping every 15–20 minutes.
  2. Make the watcher card. Kids make a Water Watcher card on a string. Whoever wears it watches; it's handed off, never set down.
  3. Agree four rules. Write four rules: wait for the watcher, always a buddy, life jackets on, thunder means out.
  4. Fit every life jacket. Check the label's weight range, buckle it up, and make sure it doesn't ride up past chin or ears.
  5. Practice calling for help. Practice on land: yell “Help!” and wave; everyone else shouts for the watcher.
  6. Say it back at the water. Before the first swim, each kid says one rule out loud. Then the watcher says go.

If it stalls

  • If a kid argues about the life jacket, give them two choices that both end in a life jacket: “The blue one or the green one?”
  • If adults keep drifting to their phones, put the phones in the bag and make the watcher card the only thing the watcher holds.
Swims with a water watcher on duty
Signed off: can do this.Signed by Date