Every July, the Lifesaving Society designates the third week as National Drowning Prevention Week. This year it runs July 19 to 25. The whole idea is to direct some real attention toward a problem that most Burlington families do not think about seriously until it is too late.
Here is the part nobody wants to sit with. Drowning is still the leading cause of accidental death for children ages one to four in Canada. Not car accidents. Not falls. Drowning. And the majority of those incidents happen right now, during the summer months, when pools open up, cottage season kicks in, and kids are near water more than any other time of year.
We have been teaching swimming in Burlington since 1992. We have seen more summers than we can count. And every single year, the pattern is the same: families assume their kids are ready, and too often they are not.
This week is a reason to actually check.
What Drowning Prevention Week Is Really About
Say “drowning prevention” to most parents and they immediately think: pool fence, life jacket, keep an eye on them. All of that matters. We are not dismissing any of it.
But here is the thing. Those are all layers of protection built around a child who still cannot do anything for themselves if something goes wrong. The fence does not help if the gate was left open. The life jacket does not help if nobody put it on. And supervision does not help if the adult looked away for thirty seconds.
Real prevention starts inside the water, with the child.
A child who knows how to float, breathe, and move toward the wall has a completely different relationship with water than one who does not. That child buys themselves time. That child has options. That is what we are actually talking about when we say drowning prevention.
The 5 Skills Every Burlington Child Should Have Before Open Water Season
These are not swim team skills. Nobody is talking about flip turns or butterfly technique. These are the five things that, in a real situation, make the difference. They are all teachable. They are all testable. And right now, in the middle of summer, every Burlington child who spends time near water should have them.
Skill 1: Comfortable submerging their face
Everything else is built on this one. A child who panics the moment water touches their face will panic in any water emergency, full stop. What you are looking for is simple: they put their face in, they hold it for five seconds, and they come up calm. Not gasping. Not immediately grabbing for you. Just calm.
If they cannot do that, nothing else on this list will hold up under pressure either.
Skill 2: Unassisted back float for at least 10 seconds
If a child ends up in water they were not supposed to be in and cannot reach the edge, floating buys them time. A back float keeps the airway above the surface while the child settles and figures out their next move. Ten seconds is the floor. Thirty seconds is where you want to be.
Skill 3: Treading water
Treading water keeps a child’s head above the surface in the sections where their feet cannot touch the bottom. The goal is 15 to 20 seconds of staying in place using both arms and legs, without reaching for a wall or grabbing onto whoever is nearby.
Skill 4: Wall recovery
This is the one most parents never think to check, and it may be the most important one on the list. Can your child turn themselves around, find the nearest wall, and actually swim to it?
In a pool, the wall is almost always within a few metres. A child who can orient toward it and get there with some sense of direction and control has a real exit strategy in the most common scenario. That is not a small thing.
Skill 5: Independent pool entry and exit
A child should be able to get in and out of a pool on their own. Without jumping into depth they cannot handle. Without needing to be lifted. Using the steps, the ladder, or the edge, but doing it themselves, with control. This matters more than people think, because the moment of entry and exit is often when things go wrong.
How to Actually Test Your Child This Week
You do not need to book anything to get a general read on where your child stands. Next time you are at a pool in Burlington, just pay attention.
Ask them to put their face in and count to five. Do they do it without much fuss? Or do they hesitate, angle their face to the side, and come up after two seconds looking to you for a reaction?
Ask them to float on their back without holding onto you. Can they relax and stay up for a full ten seconds? Or do they tense up immediately, arch their back, and start sinking?
In the deep end, with you right there beside them, ask them to tread water for fifteen seconds. Do they manage it? Or are they reaching for the wall before they even get to five?
From a few metres away from the edge, ask them to swim over and hold on. Do they get there? Or do they lose their heading and drift?
And just watch how they get in and out when the moment comes. Are they controlled? Or are they jumping into depth that is already over their head?
If your child handles all five without much trouble, they have a real foundation. If they struggle with even one or two, that is your answer. There is a gap. And July is genuinely the worst time to discover it.
“They Took Lessons Last Year” Is Not the Same as Ready
We hear this from Burlington parents constantly, and we completely understand why. Lessons were done. Progress was made. It feels reasonable to assume those skills carried forward.
But there is a real difference between a child who has taken swimming lessons and a child who can actually perform these five skills right now, today, in an unfamiliar pool.
Skills need repetition to hold. A child who finished a lesson block in October and has not been in the water since has likely lost a significant portion of what they built. That is not a failure of the lessons. It is just how skill retention works without consistent reinforcement. We wrote about this in detail in our piece on winter regression if you want to go deeper on the science of it.
There is also a gap between confidence and competence that is worth paying attention to. Some kids look completely at ease around water because they are bold and unbothered. Bold and unbothered is wonderful. But it is not the same as capable. A child who jumps into the deep end without a second thought but cannot tread water for fifteen seconds is actually at greater risk, because their confidence will put them in situations their skills cannot support.
The question is not whether your child has ever taken swimming lessons in Burlington. It is whether they can do these five things right now.
What to Do If Your Child Struggled
If any of the above gave you pause, do not put it off until September. July is peak risk season in Canada, and the window to build these skills before the cottage trips and pool parties and beach weekends is right now, not in eight weeks.
The simplest first step is a quick assessment. At Back to Basics, it takes about fifteen minutes. No obligation, no pressure, no pitch. One of our Red Cross certified instructors watches your child in the water and tells you exactly where they stand on each of the five skills. You leave knowing something real, not something assumed.
From there, we will help you figure out what makes sense. For some Burlington families, the right answer is getting into our year round weekly program so their child builds skills without the seasonal gaps that cause regression. For others, our summer intensive is the faster path: two targeted weeks, six focused sessions, with the same instructor guiding your child through every one. Private and semi-private formats mean your child is not lost in a crowd. They are actually getting coached.
We have been doing this at our Burlington location since 1992. We are proud partners of the National Drowning Prevention Alliance and the Lifesaving Society for a reason. This is not a recreational activity for us. It is a craft we take seriously.
You can book your spot at backtobasicsswim.ca or give us a call at 289-812-9661. We are at 3430 Fairview St., right here in Burlington.
Because the best time to find out your child cannot float is not at the cottage. It is here, in a controlled environment, with an instructor who has seen every gap imaginable and already knows exactly how to close it.
Back to Basics Swim Academy
Burlington’s swim school since 1992 · Red Cross certified