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…

Have a great program but no way to fund it?  Crowdfunding could be the answer.  Social media is changing how we do business in more ways than one.  The old way of doing business meant funding programs by applying for grants, hosting charity runs or selling candy to raise money. …

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

That’s right, cell phones don’t work when they are wet.  I’ve heard the trick about putting them in a bag of rice to dry them out, so if you leave your phone outside during a rain storm or it tips out of your pocket into a puddle, you can bring it back to life in a day.  That’s great, but…

I am.  Why just last week, while picking up school supplies for my kids, I expressed eagerness that school is starting soon.  Judging from the shocked looks on the other mom’s faces I might as well have said I hate my kids and am miserable being around them.  (For the record, I love them intensely, but after…

How do we end drowning?  We change people’s behavior around water. 

How do we change behavior?  We change intrinsic motivation, how someone acts even if no one else is around. 

How do we change intrinsic motivation?  Tell people what…

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…

There are two types of drowning.  There is drowning in a high-income country and there is drowning in a low-income country.  The source is the same.  Unintentional submersion in water resulting in asphyxia caused by a liquid entering the lungs.  The end result is the same.  Death, and if…

My son spotted the t-shirt on the attached photo at the Shedd Aquarium gift shop last weekend.  It cracks me up every time I look at it.  It is reminiscent of Gary Larson’s brilliant Far Side cartoons that routinely turned our perceptions upside down with hilarious results.  We often think…

I believe that we in the drowning prevention field need to share information and resources more efficiently and effectively.  I believe we must begin to videotape conference presentations and post them to YouTube so a wider range of people can benefit from the…

The scene in the locker room was all too familiar.  Mothers with a variation of determined, frazzled, happy or ‘I’m just about to blow’ looks on their face wrestling pudgy toddler arms into winter coats and trying to maneuver feet into boots while the same oblivious child is determined to explore the…

There are wonderful theories about how we should end drowning.  Everyone should have one-on-one swim lessons with a qualified instructor.  Every pool should be fenced.  Every potentially dangerous body of water should be fenced with warning signs that the public obeys.  Parents should supervise…

Social media can be a powerful tool or a destructive influence.  We all know that well-chosen words can elevate or decimate, but we also know that time heals all wounds and being able to forget words, or at least add a rosy hue to the memory, can be a…

Natural disasters like flooding and tsunamis.  Unsafe environments like overloaded ferries or rickety boats.  Over-estimating…

Do you remember your baby’s first bath?  My children are 8 and 10 now and I still vividly recall the slightly concerned frown when they were first carefully lowered into the baby bath, which quickly dissolved into sheer bliss.  Just was exciting was the day they discovered that they had…

For many years, conventional wisdom has held that blacks can not swim.  (I use the term ‘black’ to apply to anyone of African descent.  The term is meant with respect to encompass the broad range of cultures descending from the African continent)  A widely discredited academic report years ago stated…