Should child endangerment include not teaching your child to swim?

[JayS]

The second leading cause of death of children ages one to fourteen is drowning. If they are not taught to swim when they are old enough, should this be child endangerment?

A local health expert describes drowning as the silent killer, as the victim typically does not shout and splash around like they do on television. He also says that in 90% of the drownings of young children, an adult is present.





*************************************************************

From: http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus10.html

10 Leading Causes of Injury Deaths,
1999 - 2001, All Races, Both Sexes
Age
Group Rank Deaths Cause of Death

<1 >
1 1,612 Unintentional Suffocation
2 480 Unintentional MV Traffic
3 371 Homicide Other Spec., classifiable
4 340 Homicide Unspecified
5 211 Unintentional Drowning
6 133 Unintentional Fire/burn
7 114 Undetermined Suffocation
8 100 Homicide Suffocation
9 99 Adverse Effects
10 69 Unintentional Unspecified


1-4
1 1,685 Unintentional MV Traffic
2 1,441 Unintentional Drowning
3 835 Unintentional Fire/burn
4 451 Unintentional Suffocation
5 385 Homicide Unspecified
6 278 Unintentional Pedestrian, Other
7 219 Homicide Other Spec., classifiable
8 141 Homicide Other Spec., NECN
9 133 Homicide Firearm
10 123 Unintentional Fall


5-9
1 2,142 Unintentional MV Traffic
2 561 Unintentional Drowning
3 518 Unintentional Fire/burn
4 170 Homicide Firearm
5 143 Unintentional Suffocation
6 141 Unintentional Other Land Transport
7 108 Unintentional Pedestrian, Other
8 74 Unintentional Fall
9 68 Unintentional Other Transport
10 65 Unintentional Struck by or Against


10-14
1 2,704 Unintentional MV Traffic
2 516 Unintentional Drowning
3 456 Suicide Suffocation
4 421 Homicide Firearm
5 303 Suicide Firearm
6 264 Unintentional Fire/burn
7 236 Unintentional Other Land Transport
8 218 Unintentional Suffocation
9 145 Unintentional Firearm
10 120 Unintentional Pedestrian, Other


15-24
1 30,729 Unintentional MV Traffic
2 12,201 Homicide Firearm
3 6,712 Suicide Firearm
4 3,486 Unintentional Poisoning
5 3,335 Suicide Suffocation
6 1,889 Unintentional Drowning
7 1,301 Homicide Cut/pierce
8 969 Suicide Poisoning
9 915 Unintentional Other Land Transport
10 735 Unintentional Fall


25-34
1 20,077 Unintentional MV Traffic
2 9,430 Homicide Firearm
3 7,638 Suicide Firearm
4 7,242 Unintentional Poisoning
5 3,948 Suicide Suffocation
6 2,284 Suicide Poisoning
7 1,567 Undetermined Poisoning
8 1,359 Homicide Cut/pierce
9 1,239 Unintentional Drowning
10 986 Unintentional Fall


35-44
1 20,181 Unintentional MV Traffic
2 14,248 Unintentional Poisoning
3 9,318 Suicide Firearm
4 5,752 Homicide Firearm
5 4,462 Suicide Poisoning
6 4,267 Suicide Suffocation
7 3,200 Undetermined Poisoning
8 1,900 Unintentional Fall
9 1,417 Unintentional Drowning
10 1,394 Homicide Cut/pierce


45-54
1 15,431 Unintentional MV Traffic
2 9,452 Unintentional Poisoning
3 8,558 Suicide Firearm
4 3,977 Suicide Poisoning
5 2,786 Homicide Firearm
6 2,719 Unintentional Fall
7 2,527 Suicide Suffocation
8 1,986 Undetermined Poisoning
9 1,257 Unintentional Fire/burn
10 1,231 Unintentional Suffocation


55-64
1 9,942 Unintentional MV Traffic
2 5,776 Suicide Firearm
3 2,840 Unintentional Fall
4 2,154 Unintentional Poisoning
5 1,620 Suicide Poisoning
6 1,141 Unintentional Suffocation
7 1,109 Unintentional Fire/burn
8 1,104 Homicide Firearm
9 1,104 Unintentional Unspecified
10 1,075 Adverse Effects


65+
1 31,993 Unintentional Fall
2 21,942 Unintentional MV Traffic
3 17,224 Unintentional Unspecified
4 11,733 Suicide Firearm
5 9,953 Unintentional Suffocation
6 5,971 Adverse Effects
7 3,572 Unintentional Fire/burn
8 2,339 Unintentional Natural/ Environment
9 2,137 Unintentional Poisoning
10 1,698 Suicide Suffocation


All Ages
1 125,402 Unintentional MV Traffic
2 50,054 Suicide Firearm
3 41,503 Unintentional Fall
4 39,021 Unintentional Poisoning
5 32,977 Homicide Firearm
6 21,350 Unintentional Unspecified
7 17,313 Suicide Suffocation
8 16,706 Unintentional Suffocation
9 14,943 Suicide Poisoning
10 10,381 Unintentional Fire/burn

Produced by:
Office of Statistics and Programming,
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC.

Data Source:
National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Vital Statistics System.
N Not elsewhere classifiable.

[slackmaster]

1. That gets into some sticky civil rights issues

I've heard that Hutterites don't swim for religious reasons.

Personally I think it's irresponsible not to teach every child to swim if you live anywhere near a body of water more than a few inches deep. That includes swimming pools.

[JayS]

3. Hutterites

That is interesting. I think I read something about the Hutterites and swimming once but had forgotten about it. I'll have to look that up again.

[gatlingforme]

6. That is interesting! My friend use to be a hutterite in ND - he has

some very interesting stories about his colony and how they live. He also has a German accent. In any case, I am going to ask him about this.

[slackmaster]

7. I may have been thinking of Haitians

I heard on the radio on the long congested drive home that Haitians don't swim. Maybe neither Hutterites nor Hatians swim.

Hutterites don't believe in baptising infants, but they do baptise adults. I'm quite sure they don't do full immersion.

http://www.hutterites.org doesn't say anything about swimming.

[gatlingforme]

8. Thanks for the link, The Hutterites my friend belonged to is not

as strict as some other colonies. He said he swims etc.. and never heard of that rule. But then again, each colony is different.

[slackmaster]

9. Looks like their dress code wouldn't allow for comfortable swimwear

http://www.hutterites.org/faqs.htm#How%20do%20you%20dress?

For those who practice it strictly.

Some Hutterites may swim, but I'll bet none of them surf.

[FeebMaster]

2. No.

Unenforceable for one thing unless you have government mandated swimming classes that every kid has to pass under some kind of threat to the parents. Besides, plenty of people, kids and adults drown even though they know how to swim.

[JayS]

5. This was brought up by a caller to a local talk show that...

...followed the guest host's talk about drowning. I thought that not teaching your kids to swim is not a good thing, but not something to be thrown in jail over.

The message about most drownings being silent was a good one to get out though. I once rescued two swimmers and wondered why they had never called out as there were many people close by. I guess now I know why.

[MrSandman]

4. No...

Child Endangerment by ommission should be vry specific for good reason. Much of my work is with CPS.