The Key To Pool Safety

Owning a pool is a great family treat. A pool gives the family a place to relax, hang out and provides for great backyard recoil. For a family with small children, though, pool safety can never be far from the mind. Pool accidents involving young children are common and often have serious and even fatal results. Parents need to know proper pool safety because their children depend on it.

The following are some great tips that will allow you to keep your children safe around water:

• Learning to swim is the best thing anyone can do to keep their child safe around water.
• A child should never be left alone around a pool area. This is the number one way children fall into trouble around a pool. Supervision is a key to child safety.
• Make sure that anyone who may watch the children is able to swim and understands that the children must be watched at all times.
• Parents should learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and a rescue kit should be kept around the pool.
• The pool should be completely enclosed. And include a self-closing and self-latching gate. Vertical bars no more than four inches wide are ideal. Additionally, any doorways or windows that lead to the pool should be closed and secured at all times.
• Keep toys away from the pool when not in use. They can attract children into the pool.
• Flotation devices should not be a substitute for supervision. They are not life saving tools and they should not be used as such.
• The pool should either be covered or not covered. It should never be used when the cover is only partially on or off.
• Tables, chairs and other items should not be placed close enough to the pool where a child could climb on them and fall in.
• The area around the pool should not be used as a play area. When children are playing they can easily forget the pool is there and fall in.
• Above ground pool steps should be removed when the pool is not being used.
• Create a list emergency phone numbers in order of importance and make sure the supervising adult and children are aware of them.

The only way to really protect children from pool dangers is to keep them away from the pool when there is no adult around. Over all parents should use common sense and be smart about owning a pool. Children should be taught the dangers of a pool and how to avoid them.

For more information about pool safety, visit the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.

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