Child Drownings In Germany Linked To Parents' Obsession With Mobile Phones (theguardian.com)

The German Lifeguard Association (DLRG) has made a direct connection between children getting into difficulty in the water and parents being too busy on their mobile phones to notice. More than 300 people have drowned in Germany so far this year. The Guardian reports: "Too few parents and grandparents are heeding the advice: when your children and grandchildren are in the water, put your smartphone away," Achim Wiese, the DLRG's spokesman, said. "We're experiencing on a daily basis that people treat swimming pools like a kindergarten and simply don't pay attention," added Peter Harzheim of the German federation of swimming pool supervisors. "In the past, parents and grandparents spent more time with their children in the swimming pool. But increasing numbers of parents are fixated by their smartphones and are not looking left or right, let alone paying attention to their children," he told German media. "It's sad that parents behave so neglectfully these days." The organization also put some blame on the school system for not making swimming lessons required from an early age. "Budget cuts have also led to swimming pools shortening their opening times," adds The Guardian.

Comments

Obvious solution

[war4peace]

Stop taking kids to the pool. Ain't nobody got time for that shit!

Must be multiple reasons ...

[gordguide]

300 children drowning deaths over just a few months (summer) is an extraordinarily high number by my local and national standards. There must be more to it than just negligent parents using cellphones.

Canadian parents use smartphones as much as anyone in a first-world country. Below is a comparison with Germany

Note: I did not find specific data on children only in Germany, so we are comparing the news story's 300 over summer with Canada's annual numbers.

Format: Germany // Canada

Population (2018 estimate to Wed Aug 16)
82,315,335 // 36,992,745
Population Ratio:
2.22:1

Children Drowning Deaths Age 0~19
300 (?) // 68

Children Drowning Deaths Age 5~14
300 (?) // 17

**
Expected number of deaths in Germany with adjustment for equivalent population (2.22 multiplier) at Canada's rate:
Age 0-19: 151
Age 5~14: 38

Deaths per age group 5~14 by ype of waterbody:
Unsupervised pools, lakes, rivers: 16
Lifeguarded pools, lakes, beaches: 1

So obviously it isn't just parents on smartphones that is the root cause. Canadian children have massive opportunity to enter water ... more freshwater than any country on earth, and using my city as an example* numerous city swimming / wading facilities. So opportunity for drowning certainly exists. Germany should explore overall water safety issues that obviously exist rather than focusing on a somewhat sensationalist "cause" that may or may not be valid.

Bad parents are bad.

[bobstreo]

Doesn't matter if they're watching TV or posting/reading facebook.

Other bad parents may leave their kids in a 120 degree car while they gamble in a casino, or attend a nice crack party.

Bad parents may also forget the kid at a store, or library, or just leave a 5 year old home alone by themselves, so the bad parent can go on a weekend vacation.

ACCESSORIES

[xxxLCxxx]

This is not exclusive to Germans, of course:
I have noticed that more and more young parents see their children as 'accessories', much like toys. In fact, this very morning I was asking myself whether this was a man calling his dog or a father shouting out to his son. I find myself wondering often about this. They use the same tone, the same language.
On the other hand, you see persons talking to their dogs like they were people, constantly asking them questions as if they would respond, dressing them up, hugging and kissing them.
I think that the smartphone underlines the fact that they only look at their kids when they don't have anything "better" to do. Accessories become boring eventually...

So kids know how to swim, and parents swim?

[raymorris]

Sounds like perhaps swimming is very popular in Canada? So kids learn how to swim, and therefore don't drown easily? Parents grew up swimming and enjoy it, so they get in the water with their kids?

Immigration brings lots of non-swimmers

[ffkom]

Over 2 million immigrants came to Germany since 2015, and relatively large part of their children never learned to swim - the rate was 21% vs. 12% in 2016, and probably did not improve since then: https://www.armut-und-gesundhe...

But it is not only the children, also the adult non-swimmers are a problem - the press in Germany covered this topic repeatedly, for example: https://www.welt.de/vermischte...

In addition, an estimated 2% of parents do not want their children to be educated in swimming at school for religious reasons, as they consider their visibility to others in this context as "sinful".

GP isn't very accurate.

[Qbertino]

Child drownings in Germany are linked to children not learning to swim anymore because baths are closing left, right and center and learning to swim isn't a collective basic skill anymore.
Also fugitives from Afrika often don't know the concept of learning to swim.

Parents addicted to their smartphone comes in on a far back 3rd or 4th on the list of reasons.

The German press is full of this in the last year or so. Federal level is thinking about making swimming lessons mandatory again and public baths closing down due to lack of money is a problem discussed at federal level too.

Re:GP isn't very accurate.

[thegarbz]

Hardly. The German statistics are not really much different from neighbouring countries where swimming lessons are still mandatory. Actually last year the Netherlands drowning deathtoll was higher.

Also worth noting is that drownings have been trending down for many years but his year was an outlier. Possibly something to do with also record setting warm days.

Re:GP isn't very accurate.

[thegarbz]

You are comparing apples and oranges. In the Netherlands, swimming is far more common. There is water everywhere, they go swim everywhere.

Errr no. Sorry not even remotely. The vast majority of the country is perfectly dry as far as ability to swim is concerned. Most people do not swim in the canals, and large numbers of lakes are off limits in summer due to algae, but rather people swim at a few usually crowded public pools or at a select few beaches, beaches where you will see a large number of cars with white licenseplates with a little D listed under the EU symbol.

The Dutch do engage in a lot of water activities, but most of those do not take place in the water, rather on the water, or my favourite: trying to jump over water without getting wet.

Of the 300 only about 20 were children

[gotan]

The Guardian headline makes it seem like parents distracted by mobile phones was a major factor in the drownings.

But according to the article:
"Among the drownings have been more than 20 children under the age of 15, and 40 young women and men between the ages of 16 and 25."

Here one can see statistics for 2016/2017:
https://www.dlrg.de/presse/pm-...
by age:
https://www.dlrg.de/fileadmin/...
by location:
https://www.dlrg.de/fileadmin/...

Note that most drownings happen in rivers and lakes. I think it likely that the nice 2018 summer led to more people swimming at outdoor locations, hence we see an alarming number of drownings. The statistics by age doesn't indicate that parents distracted by mobile phones are the major reason for drownings, and i doubt that changed in 2018.

Nevertheless it is good advice to at least keep an eye on your child while it is in the water.