20 Aug The Basics of Building a Safe Swimming Pool for Children and How to Keep It Safe

Swimming is considered an essential life skill. Aside from being one of the most important survival skills, it is also a sport, means of exercise, and a fun recreational activity that is most common during the summer. 

Most parents opt to have their children take swimming lessons early because of its many benefits. Learning to swim at a young age enhances gross motor skill development and coordination promotes flexibility and increases self-confidence and self-esteem.

In the process of learning how to swim, children develop their physical skills and their cognitive and socio-emotional skills. Learning to swim at an early age has many benefits for your child. With this, it is also necessary to ensure your child’s safety when swimming in a pool. This article will dive into the basics of building a safe swimming pool for children. Next, it will discuss the importance of water safety and how it can help children avoid swimming pool accidents. Lastly, it will provide you with a basic swimming pool safety checklist that will help you maintain a safe swimming pool area for your child. This safety checklist is universally applied wherever you are in the world.

The Basics of Building a Safe Swimming Pool for Children

Owning your private swimming pool comes with numerous responsibilities that help protect your family, especially your children. Ensuring the safety of your child when swimming should be your priority. When building your swimming pool, begin by ensuring that the swimming pool and the area are equipped with facilities that guarantee children’s safety.

Swimming pool accidents can be reduced when precautions regarding swimming pool safety are established. If you are interested in building your swimming pool in your backyard, here are some factors that can help ensure your children’s safety: 

• Fencing – The swimming pool should have safety barriers, such as regularly maintained fences, that keep young children from accessing the pool. These fences can be made of any material if there are no significant gaps and children cannot climb.
• Filtration – Your swimming pool should have a water recirculation and filtration system that complies with your area’s legislation regarding swimming pools. This reduces the risk of injuries such as suction entrapment.
• Maintenance – Swimming pool safety features should be monitored and maintained regularly to ensure all features are functioning correctly at all times. Another required safety feature is a self-closing gate, which should also be regularly maintained.

How Basic Water Safety can help Children Avoid Swimming Pool Accidents

Swimming pool accidents such as slips and falls, pool toy entrapment, and drowning may occur when water safety guidelines are not followed. These accidents can lead to serious injuries such as head injuries, broken bones, and even death. Here are three basic water and swimming safety guidelines that can help you and your children avoid swimming pool accidents:

• Children should be constantly supervised and are highly encouraged to swim with other adults around.
• Remind children to always ask permission before going near the water. 
• Adults supervising children are highly recommended to stay in arm’s reach of children.

How to Check if Your Swimming Pool is Safe with a Pool Safety Checklist

Already have a swimming pool of your own and are not sure if it meets the basic safety measures needed to keep your children safe? Here is a checklist that can help you assess how safe your swimming pool is:

• Young children should not be able to climb over, under, or through the fence to get to the pool. Swimming pool fences are usually required to be at a 1.2m high and 1.8m for boundary fences. 
• All the gates in your pool safety barrier should close and latch properly, and should be self-closing and self-latching so that young children cannot easily open them.
• Children should not be able to access the swimming pool through a window in your house. 
• The pool should be clear of toys and other floating objects that could attract children to the water. When not in use, keep them out of the pool.
• Objects that could be used for climbing over a pool safety barrier like toys, outdoor furniture, ladders, and those of the likes, should be kept far away from the safety barriers.

Thinking of ways to help make your swimming pool at home safer for your children? Let Sentrel help you with that! Sentrel manufactures a range of vertically tensioned cable balustrades and pool fencing. These fences incorporate a sensitive yet functional combination of marine-grade stainless steel and beautiful hardwood rails or aluminium rails in a range of modern colours. The options available to pool owners allow you to have a stylish look while having the most sophisticated safety features.