Kerre Woodham: We all need to swim

Anyway, another grim toll too, is the number of drownings this year. 74 preventable drownings, with the holiday season still to come. Water Safety New Zealand says although knowing how to swim is the best prevention method against drowning, too few New Zealand children are having swimming lessons. 48% of our kids are not having lessons. Despite the fact that 2/3 of parents aren't confident their children have the skills to help themselves if they get in a water emergency. If they're pulled out to sea over their heads, if they fall into a swimming pool, if they fall off a wharf, get tipped out in a boat, that sort of thing. Water Safety NZ CEO Daniel Gerard told Early Edition that cost means swimming lessons for a family is prohibitive.

“You're looking at about $20 plus for a 20-to-30-minute lesson, so there's no question at all that it's a major barrier. For a number of families, and anecdotally, we're hearing. But if it comes down to it, we will just send one child to swimming lessons this year and the other two will just see what we can do.”

Let's start with the very basics. You need to have a parent. Who has the time? To take the children. To the swimming lesson. So you have to find a swimming lesson that fits in with your work schedule. If you're working on Saturday mornings and that's the reality for many, many families. Yeah, you've got. Sure you've got after school. You've got Saturdays and Sundays, but again, you've got to have somebody who. can mind the children who aren't going. And then what? You take the whole damn family along when you take the child to or something less. And then you've got to be able to get there. They're not at the end of the street. You have to be able to transport the kids. Too swimming lessons. I know that there is a faction within this country that wants us all on buses, but try and get to swimming lessons. When you've got a family in tow. Even if you can get the time off. There needs to be a parent who believes in the value of swimming. Lessons who understands the importance, who's confident and watered themselves. Who knows the joy? That being able to swim can bring. It's a lifelong pleasure. But unless you know that you can't know what you don't know, so you have to have somebody who believes in the value of it, and you've got the cost and everything. Everything is being looked at in families these days. Certainly families with young children, families with mortgages. Everybody is looking at their budgets.

We all need to swim. I absolutely believe that. But we can't dump this one on the schools as well. But if you've got parents who are doing it tough anyway. Who is going to teach these kids how to swim and give them a gift for life?

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