squidkid.

An excellent personal trainer I know, Robert Werner, just forwarded me his Youth Fitness Power Point presentation. I have listened to Robert speak before on physical fitness (he’s also an incredible cultural dancer and can teach you how to get your groove on with Brazilian, African and Caribbean rhythms).

Did you know the latest statistics on childhood obesity show that 32% of U.S. kids are either obese or overweight? Kids between 10-13 years of age who are currently obese have a 70%  likelihood of becoming obese adults. (If you want to check out the facts, visit Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here).

Robert makes the case that since there isn’t much we can do about genes, we — parents and kids — can focus on controlling eating and activity.

Swimming is a suggested activity, of course. What’s great about water is that water provides a low-impact environment. This is helps eliminate hard stress on the body for overweight or obese bodies.

For kids to get the recommended 1-hour of physical activity a day, it has to be fun — here are 10 Ways to Make Youth Fitness Fun (in the Water, of course)!

1. Have a pool party. That’s hours of swimming activity your kids and their friends will partake in.
2. Use StickK.com to come up with kooky goals. There’s a lady who swore she’d eat a can of dog food if she didn’t lose 20-lbs by such-and-such date. Your kids can post and link to their My Space page.
3. Go swimming together. A friend’s pool, dropping in at the Y — anything to show them you like swimming too. Do the doggy paddle while you ask your kid about their day.
4. Retrieve $10 of change. Whatever your kid can grab in quarters at the bottom of the pool in 1-minute, it’s theirs (to spend on physical fitness stuff).
5. Treading-while-talking challenge. Kid must swim with their head up for 10 whole minutes and answer all of your questions: Your favorite color? Show? Movie? Shoes? Vacation?) I bet you’ll learn a lot and they’ll love the attention.
6. Cool flippers or fins. Everyone — and I mean everyone — loves fins. I have yet to met a kid who doesn’t go nuts over them.
7. Hot tub rewards. Many public or community centers have them. Sometimes it’s worth to go swimming just to soak after.
8. Weekly swim dates. Make it regular with a friend they enjoy being with and who swims on about the same level.
9. Outdoor iPod speakers. Get a game of musical chairs — or certain spots in on the pool side — going. I just bought an outside boombox for an iPod for $40.
10. Good ‘ol Marco-Polo.Your heard the one about the police officer finding a hidden robber in a warehouse when he called out ‘Marco’ and the thief answered ‘Polo’ out of instinct, right?

Common knowledge, right? But it is easier said than done. If you see your little one in danger, you’re going to do whatever it is you have to do to make them safe again. Especially when it comes to pools or bodies of water. Time is not on your side in these situations.

Steering far from extreme water dangers — meaning near-drowning incidents — let’s used distressed swimmers in our example.  A distressed swimmer is a swimmer actively struggling. Signs of a distressed swimmer are wide eyes, submerged mouth, and splashing quietly. They do not call for help or make loud noises. (For further clarification, technically a near-drowning victim means at some point, the person stopped breathing and was administered CPR).

Distressed swimmers — caught and assisted before unconsciousness — usually suffer the aftermath of a water trauma. This is different from a water fear, which is  imagined incidents happening. With water trauma, something did go down.

We all have our water trauma stories. All of us. We all remember a time when mom wasn’t looking and so-and-so jumped in the pool; when a neighbor grabbed and help us under; when we hit our head on the diving board.

So we want to try and eliminate or at least control our kids’ water trauma stories. How we react can create, counter and redirect a memory. Advice to handle a Swimming Emergency calmly:

• Be swift and silent. Do what you need to do, but don’t make a big, dramatic show of it, vocally or physically.
• Try to assist the distressed swimmer from the side of the pool. Reach, throw, but don’t go unless you have to. This is how lifeguards do it. You are teaching responsibility for actions.
• Turn it into a game. This is good for the very young and toddlers — if you are forced to jump in and rescue, immediately start swimming around with the child. You’ve got to channel the nervous energy into something else to avoid an emotional impact.
• Stop talking about it. Every time you bring it up, it enforces the experience and swimming itself as wrong and bad and scary. That’s too much for any kid to handle. Get an experienced instructor who deals with this issue and let them properly advise you both how to work through it.
• Use the right terminology. Parents work on teaching the concept of drowning, but discuss the cause — basically, not following or understanding water safety rules and ability.

I see a lot of parents complaing about the pool rules at the community center I teach at — there are so many pool rules because there are so many ways for your kid’s safety to be jeopardized in a pool. The best defense to any unfavorable swimming emergency is a good offense. Have pool rules, an emergency plan, a pool fence. Enforce and practice.

Sometimes I wish I had a waterproof pen and paper in the pool because the things kids say in the pool are truly priceless. When I can remember these antidotes and repeat them later, they always make my listeners smile.

I found a funny essay today on a blog called The Minivan Monologues about an 8-year kid who was swearing in his swim lesson, and how a fellow student responded to his behavior.

I’ve got to say my most memorable swim story was about a very frustrated and stubborn  4-year old little girl who refused to participate in any of the swim lesson activities I asked her to do. She did not enjoy me repeatedly asking her to put her face in the water and would scowl at me in response.

Finally, after about the third lesson and a hundred tries to get her to put her face in, I changed tactics and posed this question to her: “You want to grow up and be a swimmer, don’t you?”

She glared at me angryly and replied, “No! I want to grow up and be a VETERINARIAN!”