Summer is almost upon us, which means pools and beaches will be soon be opening. While your kids are having fun splashing in the surf, it is important to keep in mind water safety.

When I was 16 years old, I got my first real job as a lifeguard for the public town pool. Now that I’m a mom, I understand how necessary it is for me to watch my children and not rely on the lifeguard.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), an average of 3,868 deaths per year occur due to unintentional drowning in the United States. Children ages 1–4 years old were most likely to drown in a swimming pool. Individuals from 5-19 years old were most likely to drown in natural water such as an ocean or lake.

Based on my experience as a lifeguard, here are a few reasons I watch my children when they swim: 

It Was My First Job

Translation: I had no experience. Sure, I got the proper certifications, but I had never had a job, and I never was responsible for ensuring the safety of others. I don’t think I really understood how serious it was to be entrusted with this. I thought being a lifeguard sounded like fun. I was getting paid to sit in the sun and socialize with my friends—that’s how teenagers tend to view it.

It Was Low Paying

Granted, this was a while ago, and the pay can vary depending on where you work, but my first lifeguard job paid $4.25 per hour (it wasn’t a lot back then either — today’s dollar equivalent is $8.86). According to PayScale the average rate for a lifeguard now is $9.48, which might not be considered a lot of money to a teenager. Even though I was a responsible person, there are teens who view this low pay as a reason to not pay attention.

It’s Hard to See/Hear Everything

On hot, crowded days, there are hundreds of people in the pool. Kids are screaming to get their friends’ attention, parents are yelling at their kids to get out of the pool and the other lifeguard is hollering yet again to the child running, “you need to walk, not run.” It’s hard to hear over all this commotion. If your child yells “help,” then I might not be able to hear it. Or, if they are struggling to swim, I might not be able to see it. With so many people in the pool all moving in different directions, it’s hard to keep track of everyone.

I’m Not a Disciplinarian

The rules for no running or no diving in shallow water exist because it’s unsafe. I had a hard time enforcing these rules since I didn’t know how to discipline other people’s children (they don’t teach that during the lifeguard certification class). This creates an unsafe situation not only for your own children, but for other people as well if parents don’t help to enforce these rules. 

People Crack Under Pressure

One time while I was a lifeguard, a person had a seizure and was drowning. I was not near the person when it happened, but the lifeguard that should have rescued this person froze in fear and did nothing. Luckily another nearby lifeguard stepped in and rescued the person.

As a Parent You Should: 

1. Always watch your child in the pool or other bodies of water, even if they know how to swim. Knowing how to swim doesn’t mean you can’t drown.

2. Help enforce the pool rules like no running and no diving in shallow areas. Kids can easily slip on the wet cement when they run. And if you dive in shallow areas, you can hit your head which could cause paralysis.

3. Make sure your child understands the pool gradually gets deeper. I once saw a child almost drown because they didn’t understand this concept and walked to a point where they could no longer stand.

4. Understand that arm floaties can come off your child. Don’t rely on this to keep your child’s head above water.

5. Understand that kids can drown in a puddle of water and it only takes seconds.

The CDC found most drownings are preventable. Drownings usually occur in areas without lifeguards. Even if there is a lifeguard, as a parent it is important to have your guard up as well.

Originally published on Signature Moms.

 Cheryl Maguire holds a Master of Counseling Psychology degree. She is married and is the mother of twins and a daughter. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, National Geographic, Washington Post, Parents Magazine, AARP, Healthline, Your Teen Magazine and many other publications. She is a professional member of ASJA. You can find her at Twitter @CherylMaguire05

In Tanzania in 2004, Columbia University professor Dr. Marni Sommer was looking into the issue of menstruation and puberty for girls as a part of her doctoral dissertation research. She expected to find large gaps of knowledge and resources for these young girls in lower-income countries and areas, and decided to write a book that was composed of facts and tips, as well as first-hand accounts from older girls about their own puberties. After the great success this received, she turned her gaze onto the youth of America.

“My team at the Mailman School at Columbia University [and I] … had become increasingly concerned that even girls in the U.S. were not getting enough information and support about their changing bodies,” Dr. Sommer says. “The participatory research that we did with American girls, including collecting first period stories from twenty-five states across the country, led to our new book, ‘A Girl’s Guide to Puberty and Periods’!”

Fresh off the press, though also available digitally, this book aims to provide girls in low-resource areas of the country with the knowledge they need. Sommer and colleagues decided to self-publish to maintain the low price-point. They have also reached out to over 200 youth-focused non-profits who can use the book in their programs, and are also in the process of getting in contact with libraries and school-systems to get it placed on as many shelves as possible.

To the Drawing Board

In the style of a graphic novel, its pages covered in awesome drawings by Emily Scheffler of girls from various backgrounds, races, and cultures, “A Girl’s Guide to Puberty and Periods” is bound to help many girls identify with and showcase how different each puberty experience can be. Though the places and settings of the story can be quite different — it could be a dad, mom, or grandma helping out — themes of fear, embarrassment, and shame frequently popped up in the personal anecdotes. This not only shocked Dr. Sommer, but it also helped drive home the fact that this book was needed.

“The first period stories were all collected from the participatory research we did across the country, an approach that I’ve used since my doctoral research when I collected first period stories from adolescent girls in Tanzania,” she says. “In this way, the book becomes a book by girls for girls, as the stories are so central to the learning. It’s always been important to me that we have adolescent girls include, at the end of a personal story, their advice for younger girls who have yet to reach puberty. In that way it’s like an older sister advising a younger sister, and it is much more meaningful.”

Spotting the Issue

Puberty can be tough. The stigma surrounding it, particularly when in regards to female puberty, makes discussion of the ins-and-outs of periods, PMS, and feminine hygiene uncomfortable at best, scary at worst. 

“As my own friends begin to have kids reaching puberty, I have found it so interesting that they are across the board quite uncomfortable needing to ‘have the conversation,’ as it were, with their kids,” says Dr. Sommer. “Or their kids are eager to find anyone but their parents to talk to. I think the discomfort may be about the symbolic meaning that people — the girls themselves, parents or caregivers — give to puberty as a sign or symbol of young adulthood, of leaving childhood behind, even though many kids enter puberty long before we would perceive them as adults.”

Tiffany Pottkotter, a ProMedica Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner from Findlay who has had over fifty articles published and has engaged in fifty-six public appearances, also understands that there is a major problem in the stigma that surrounds girl’s puberty.

“I wish I knew why [there is a stigma],” says Pottkotter. “I think it’s because, at that age and through that cognitive lens — nine or ten-years-old — it seems like such a weird concept for them. But if we really start to normalize it and look around, obviously everybody goes through it, just at different times. In my own conversations talking with my kid’s friend’s moms, they’ll be like, ‘No, I don’t want to freak her out,’ or, ‘No, I don’t want to scare her”. And I thought, man… if that’s the message we’re sending to the girls — that this is a scary thing — then that’s definitely the wrong approach. My approach with my daughter was, ‘Hey, this is a very natural and beautiful thing your body is going to go through. Let’s be prepared, let’s make a little kit.’”

Pottkotter pushes adults to realize this stage of everyone’s life, like Sommer’s new book suggests, is “not ‘one size fits all’. The best approach is open and honest communication with your child, and to really just normalize these events so it’s not this big mystery nobody has talked about. We should culturally be talking about these things.”

“A Girl’s Guide to Puberty and Periods” can be purchased from most major retailers, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.