The Summer Fun Swimming Pool

The swimming pool:

I love this card for the obvious. It’s a swimming pool, and for many young ones this symbolizes fun, even if they have never played in one. Media presents pools in video, cartoons  and imagery as a place where groups of children play, laugh and have a great time.
 
So far I have had no surprises with this card.

• I ask the children if they have ever gone swimming in a pool.
  
• I ask them if they have a pool at their house or know anyone with a pool.
  
• Once I establish their history I can build my next questions from there.
  
• I walk the children through scenarios alone and also including their friend. Are they walking towards a pool when there are no adults are around?
  
• Is their favorite toy is in the pool? How should they get it out when they are alone?
  
• This is a great card to discuss in May when neighborhood pools are opening and vacations are back in full swing.
  

This card is really for the parents as well. They often feel like having this conversation once is enough. It is not enough. It can also leads us to have conversations on the importance of swimming lessons and not giving false trust to their children by putting on a flotation device and feeling like they have warded off a future situation.
 
We discuss the helpful hints:
-Do not swim alone , if you needed help no one would be there, it is not safe
-Get a parent or guardian, you must have a trusted adult with you at the pool.
-Drown=Death, we discuss this hard subject in several different ways, depends on their ages. In these discussions, I have learned about the drowning death of family pets and relatives than I care to admit. I try and use their stories, my stories to help them understand the seriousness of Drown=Death.

Chirsta Forrester

***I have 5-10 "go to" cards in the Smart Choices Image Card deck. As of late, most of my students have been between the ages of 4 and 10. I like to think ahead so I  usually pull a secondary set of images to prepare for conversations they may be come in handy to think outside of what my original plans are.
 
The process in which I teach, plus the images, are approved by the parents/grandparents.  I like to ask the parents before our meeting where THEY see a concern and they almost all say "firearms". It’s not until I show them my pre selected stack of cards that ”light bulb” goes off, and the realization that they are not guiding their children through as many opportunities as they thought.