Keep Your Kids Safe in Your Pool with These Safety Tips

As the most valuable people in your life, your children deserve special attention and protection. If you have a beautiful residential pool on your property, it can threaten the health of unaccompanied young children. Thankfully, if you apply some basic water safety rules, you can safeguard the well-being of your kids.

At Mr Pools, we’ve had the privilege to serve people living in the Sydney area for many years. As master pool builders, we’ve constructed many different styles, sizes, and types of pools over the years. We focus on customer service, and our custom pool installations put you in charge of the design process.

We ensure that our customers get as much value and use out of their pools as possible. We also take the safety of our customers seriously. Our guide to pool safety will help you prevent serious pool-related accidents.

Important Pool Safety Considerations

  • Communication
  • Lifeguards
  • Barriers
  • Dangerous objects
  • Lessons

Communication

Communicating with your kids is invaluable when it comes to pool safety. Even younger children should know and follow essential safety practices. Put these safety rules in writing and post them in easily visible places to facilitate this communication.

What should this list of safety rules contain? Every family has different needs depending on their pool. However, a general water safety checklist should include the following:

  • Don’t play rough or run near the edge of the pool.
  • Always ask an adult for supervision before you swim.
  • Before you get in the water, always put on your life jackets.
  • Never dive into the shallow end of the pool.
  • Don’t shove other kids into the water.
  • Don’t hold your breath underwater for extended periods.

Your personal family water safety rules may look somewhat different from this list. Still, the most important factor is that your kids understand that water can be dangerous.

Lifeguards

Even if you are near your pool, you may easily miss a small child falling in. Once this accident happens, the child may not have a chance to cry out for help or make some other type of noise. For this reason alone, it’s so important to keep a close eye on your kids as they swim.

It’s not always easy to monitor them because life presents many distractions. Conversations, digital devices, music, and more can occupy your attention. Because it’s so easy to become distracted, it’s an excellent idea to appoint an acting lifeguard whenever kids are in the water.

This lifeguard could be a family member or a friend. However, this individual will have the responsibility of watching your kids swim during their shift.

Barriers

Barriers are another layer of security for your pool. These installations and devices physically prevent kids from accessing the pool water. Such a barrier may be around swimming pool perimeters or even on the water.

For example, low or high fences make fine security additions. Low fences make it harder for kids to enter the water quickly, and high fences can bar them from gaining access. If you decide to install water security fences, use a latching gate to ensure it stays secured when adults aren’t present.

Pool covers make good security devices for the water itself. If you practice using and locking your pool cover during downtime, you’ll go a long way toward preventing any tragic accidents.

Dangerous Objects

Manufacturers make most water toys to be safe, but children don’t always use them properly. In addition, young kids often introduce foreign objects into pools for recreation. For example, sticks, bottles, or other hard floating objects can endanger people jumping in the pool.

Other examples of dangerous objects include pool operation components. Most pools have powerful suction motors that draw in water and filter it continuously. Pumps and drains usually have secured covers that prevent people from accessing them.

Unfortunately, these drain covers come loose. This loosening is a problem because many large in-ground pool pumps are strong enough to trap kids in the water. As such, it’s crucial that you properly secure drain covers and any other potential water-borne dangers.

Lessons

Another way to protect your kids is to provide competent swimming lessons. These lessons will teach them valuable water survival techniques like floating, treading water, and water movement. If a child enters the water alone, the training will equip them to stay above the surface.

Alarm Devices

Children are clever and, despite your best efforts, may gain access to potentially dangerous pools. To guard against this possibility, you can use alarm devices as the last lines of defence. These alarms come in different designs, but they all serve the same general function.

Once you install one, the alarm detects physical movement and disturbances in the water. It then sends out audible or visual alarms to alert you. Using an alarm device can buy you critical seconds if you need to perform a rescue.

Secure Smaller Ground Pools

Lots of homes in the Sydney area have smaller types of swimming pools. These include lap pools, plunge pools, and hot tubs. Although these pools have less water than the in-ground variety, it doesn’t take much water to cause a tragedy.

Hot tubs, lap pools, and plunge pools are more than deep enough to cause serious injury or death. To secure these smaller pools, use safety techniques and precautions like those you use on larger bodies of water.

Professional Checkups

Even the best-designed pools need occasional attention and maintenance. If you sign up for a periodic maintenance program, you can have pool professionals regularly inspect your pool’s infrastructure. They will closely examine your pool along with the electrical work and pumps.

At Mr Pools, we put our customers first in every way, including safety. We hope our pool safety guide will help protect your kids as they enjoy the many pleasures that swimming pools provide. To learn more about our pool options and get a free consultation, call us today at 02 9746 3033.

 

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