Happy International Water Safety Day!  Did you know that today, May 15, is International Water Safety Day?  The members of the U.S. Congress know, because a group representing drowning prevention efforts in the U.S. is meeting with them today to alert them to the hidden epidemic of…

Are you a ‘buy every child safety product on the market’ parent or a ‘well, a few bumps won’t kill them’ parent?  Is every table in your house surrounded with foam padding or do you silently curse when you are visiting someone with an indecipherable toilet lock? 

We all want to keep kids safe, but the huge range of options can be…

I

’m a mom and I’m pissed off.  Not a bit concerned.  Not even angry.  I’m pissed off as in, ‘I have a flame thrower and I’m not afraid to use it’ pissed off.  Why?  Because child safety is about as big a mom issue as you can get, and yet children keep drowning and no one is talking about it.  We all know ‘stop, drop and roll’, but did you know that…

How can I teach thee?  Let me count the ways....

1. Traditional swimming lessons  - through your Y, park district pool, community pool, local swim instructor or any other well-regarded program.  The classes should be fun and not at all threatening or frightening to your child.  Start early and…

I recently wrote about a group of lifeguards was fired for posting a video of them lip-syncing to the wildly successful Gangnam rap song. Variations on Gangnam have garnered over 300,000,000 hits to-date on YouTube.  Thanks to the ham-handed…

“If you set sights high and you stick with it, you can make real progress.”  Dr. Paul Farmer

Dr. Paul Farmer is a medical anthropologist and physician.  He is a founding director of Partners in Health (PIH), an international non-profit organization that provides direct health care services and…

Are we ‘Too many cooks spoil the soup’ or ‘Stone soup’?   (Stone soup is the fable where the hungry soldier puts a stone in a pot of water and convinces the townspeople to add to the ‘delicious’ stone soup by adding a turnip, a potato, a carrot, until it really does become a delicious soup for the whole town.)

Too many cooks spoil the soup…

Even the best swimmers are not drown-proof, and Shallow Water Blackout can be the cause.  I’ve had some inquiries about Shallow Water Blackout recently which led me to develop a list of resources.  I thought I’d share them here, starting with a description of the issue from …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ohqy7aAwMc

A group of lifeguards was fired for creating a video on YouTube.  This link has over 1,000,000 hits so far.  Yes, that is 1 million people who now know what a lifeguard uniform looks like.  It’s 1 million…

We don’t get no respect.

One of the most common themes I hear from aquatics professionals is, ‘Why don’t people realize this is important?  Why don’t they understand?’.

The next most common theme is ‘should we or shouldn’t we adopt standards, issue licenses, and have…

I was reminded time and again this week of why I like kids.  That is not to say that I would ever return to middle school, even on pain of death.  That is not to say that I think kids should rule the world and parents and adults should not be making the tough decisions and sticking with them.  It is to say that if we listen to our kids it can be a good reminder of the…