The Importance of Waterproofing your Nanny
By: Diana Goodwin, President of AquaMobile Swim School
If you have a Nanny or caregiver looking after your little ones, you’ve likely gone to great lengths to make sure you’ve found the perfect Nanny based on your checklist of “Must Haves”.
But have you checked to see if your Nanny or caregiver is able to keep your kids safe around the water? Whether it’s your own home pool, at the lake or at a Community Center pool, it is vital to ensure that your Nanny is able to protect your children, prevent accidents from happening, and be able to react quickly in the case of an emergency.
Below are a few things you should ask your Nanny or potential Nanny to see if she or he is equipped to watch children around a water environment:
- Can they swim? If so, what is the extent of their swimming skills?
- Do they know First Aid & CPR?
- Do they know how to keep your home pool safe and secure from children?
- Do they know what to do in case of a water-related incident or emergency?
If your Nanny is missing even just one of the above skills, you should have a certified professional teach your Nanny these skills. They are also essential skills for anyone else that may at some point be looking after your children. This includes grandparents, older siblings/cousins, and even yourselves, as parents.
At AquaMobile, we strongly believe in the importance of “WaterProofing” your Nanny and have designed the AquaMobile Pool Safety Course geared towards this: We customize the course based on your Nanny’s existing knowledge and cover topics including:
- How to keep your pool safe
- Basic swimming skills
- First Aid & CPR procedures
- How to react in emergency situations
Given that drowning is the second leading cause of injury-related death in young children, and 60% of these drownings occur at home, ensuring they have these skills is a small price to pay to help keep your children safe.
Diana Goodwin is Founder & President of AquaMobile Swim School, a private swim school that offers high quality swim instruction at clients’ home and condo pools in over 30 cities across Ontario. AquaMobile Swim School can be reached at info@aquamobileswim.com or 1-888-950-7946. For water safety tips, games and more, follow AquaMobile on Twitter or Facebook.
