<p>This whole party supervision issue reminds me of when my son was in preschool & invited to a birthday party where they MIGHT go swimming. I asked the mother of the birthday girl who would be attending & found out my son would not know a SOUL at the party and she was very unclear about supervision.<br>
I told her that my 4-year-old son did NOT know how to swim well and I was very concerned. I asked if I could come to the party with him & she said I needed to let him get “street smarts” & not coddle him. It was pretty upsetting to hear that about a non-swimmer possibly going to a swimming party where he knew NO ONE. I tagged along as one of the few adults & watched. Son spent the entire party watching & they did go swimming in a large, deep pool with lots of older kids splashing around & roughhousing.
For all the other pool parties my son attended in preschool, hostesses had the good sense & manners to invite parents & have sufficient chaperones if they chose not to attend.</p>
<p>When safety & danger are issues for any party, I would definitely draw the line & not allow my child to be unnecessarily exposed to such situations. Heck, they’ll have enough dangers the whole rest of their lives, why expose them in the name of “fun”?</p>
<p>HIMom, I couldn’t agree more. There’s another family here (again, “regional royalty”) who asked if my son could spend the night and work on a homework project. When I picked him up the next day he said they didn’t get to any homework, but he proudly showed me these “cool burnmarks” that he had all over him!! Apparently the parents had built a big fire in the backyard and the boys (4 of them) were allowed to jump over the fire!! The dad was inside watching football…their clothes could’ve caught on fire and my son’s burns were from burning sticks that the boys were chasing each other with! When I found this out, I called the father and told him that if there would be no fires at the house if my son happenned to be there. I also called to inform a couple of other parents whose sons aren’t as forthright with their parents as mine is. Wouldn’t you know the next day that father called me back with the “boys will be boys” and “they need exposure to things” and “you have to cut the apron strings” talk? I couldn’t believe it! I basically told him that I didn’t agree and hung up. (Just like the hunting dad conversation). Apparently the next weekend another boy was burned, and they decided to put the fire out. Ridiculous!!</p>
<p>dke, where in the world do you live.?I grew up in rural, huntin and fishin, non-coddling, “be a man” territory and I’m still dumbfounded about all of this.</p>
<p>I live in Northern Florida in a very “exclusive” (I hate that word but that’s the way they refer to it) beachfront community. (not by choice, either…I’m from the new york area originally…this is all a culture shock to me)</p>
<p>Believe me, Garland, its crossed our minds! I’d like to put this behind me, but unfortunately, I have to deal with the parents this week because now its MY son’s bday! It’s not fair to penalise the boy because his parents are cracked. (and no, we’re not having a hooker come so they can all lose their virginity…lunch and videos at a restaurant with soft drinks only…ha!) H and I were talking last night about (even though we’re Episcopalians) where we come from a rite of passage would be a bar mitzvah, but here its a rootin’ tootin’ brewsky hoe down!</p>
<p>You do have to question the judgement of some folks. </p>
<p>My D went to a sleep over in 6th grade and the mother let them rent “The Exorcist”! My D said she was not allowed to watch R rated movies and excused herself to another room. Proud of D, but no child should be put in that position.</p>
<p>My son had a classmate over to our home after I called the parents to be sure it would be OK. The kid was about 7 years old–parents had never met me & said fine. I asked when he should be returned & they said, “Whenever you’re done with him.” They worked together through dinner. After dinner, the kid refused to say where he lived & his folks NEVER CALLED, even tho it was dark & approached 9pm. Fortunately, we still had the phone number the kid orginally gave us, so we called his folks to ask where to return the child & they gave us their address. Later, the kid invited our son over to his house (tho no parents are home during the day) & we told our son that he could bring this kid to our house but he couldn’t go to any home where there were no adults.</p>
<p>We dumbfounded that these folks had no concern about their child & what he was doing & where he was so late at night. The kids didn’t maintain their friendship & we lost touch with that child.</p>
<p>When my daughter turned 6, I planned a small (6 child) birthday-and-swimming party for her. The mom of one of her friends called and said “Jenny would love to come, and I will come and be the person who spends the entire party just watching the pool, if that’s all right, I have lifeguard certification.” I thought it was such a sensible idea to have a designated pool watcher that I asked someone to do it at every swim party we had after that. And of course, out of all the swim parties, we only had one kid who tried to sneak in a swim when he was supposed to be eating cake… but we caught him and kept him from swimming alone. Sometimes people just need to be given a better idea.</p>
<p>We’ve had several drownings here over the years because so many people have pools. A designated pool watcher is a great idea for any sort of party where kids and adults are milling around, and no one’s able to completely pay attention.</p>
<p>One of the things I did was make sure each of my kids took swimming lessons from the time they were 2 years old until I was convinced they could comfortably swim across any swimming pool they found themselves at (both reached that goal before they started kindergarten).
We live on an island & are surrounded by water & swimming pools. My folks have one, as do my brother & sister’s homes. Many of their friends also have pools.
It is amazing how quickly folks can drown. I have rescued both my child & my niece from drowning (in separate incidents) before anyone else knew that the child’s heads were submerged. Whenever any child is in the water, I am very distracted until all kids are away from the water–there are no second chances. Both my brother & sister had “safety fences” installed around the perimeter of their pools & have had swimming instructors at their homes every summer so all their kids swim like fishes.
A designated pool watcher is a good idea, as long as the watcher has a good attention span & doesn’t get distracted.</p>
<p>My parents, neither of them confident swimmers, always had the pool/river/lake phobia–even though we never had a pool growing up. All of us kids had to take Red Cross swimming lessons, right up through Sr. Lifesaving and WSI. It’s the reason so many colleges have a swimming requirement, based on 19th century tragedy, and a weighted bequest by a bereaved alumni family. Cornell and Williams come to mind, but I know there are others where we found this swimming competence requirement as well. Such an incredibley common cause of death. I never had a pool as an adult either, because of fears for my kids.</p>
<p>At my kids’ HS, everyone has to pass a swim test to graduate. I believe several ivies have swimming requirements as well. It’s amazing how many folks DON’T know how to swim, even enough to save their lives. The ridiculous thing is we live on an island. A friend took his infant kids surfing with them before they knew how to swim. They have learned since, but it’s not something I’d be comfortable with. My sister-in-law never learned to swim, but was taking lessons as a adult & found it really tough going, embarassing too, since she felt she SHOULD know.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids got beyond swimming well enough to get lifesaving, WSI or any of those certifications, tho you can earn some good money if you have them & a long attention span & are willing to be in the sun & pull people out of the water.</p>
<p>In seattle we don’t generally have pools unless they are a lap pool but we are surrounded by water every where.
My youngest does go surfing but I wouldn’t take a baby surfing- they are too damn slippery!</p>
<p>I would think contending with the waves, other surfers & their boards, & your board would take up enough of your attention that adding a baby to the mix is just asking for trouble.<br>
I think it’s safer to take babies cross-country skiing (provided you’re pretty steady on your feet & unlikely to pitch forward or back–depending on where baby is strapped).</p>
