Knowing how to swim about safety as well as fun, fitness – Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

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Taariq Cleveland, 13, didn’t know how to swim four months ago. But then a boys’ camp in Canada granted the Rochester teen a free 10-day canoe trip. Basic swimming skills were required.

So he along with his father started taking lessons from a YMCA instructor and from a teacher who’d connected Taariq to the boys’ camp.

Taariq said it was hard at first to relax and to learn to maneuver his body in the water. But he got comfortable and he learned to swim the length of a pool, jump and dive in. He had a great time at camp in July. Although he’d been afraid of heights, he says with pride, “I jumped off a cliff” and into a lake.

Swimming is not only for fun and fitness but also for safety.

A USA Swimming study this year of more than 2,000 children and parents in six cities found that 70 percent of African-American children and 58 percent of Hispanic children had low or no swim ability, compared to 40 percent of white children. Inability to swim puts people at higher risk for drowning as was clear in early August when six teenage siblings from two families drowned in the Red River in Louisiana. None of the teens or the adults nearby could swim.

The drowning rate for children ages 5 to 14 is three times higher for African-American children than for white children, according to the Centers for Disease Control. On average nationwide, there are nearly 10 deaths a day from unintentional drownings.

About once a year in the Rochester area, a child under age 10 drowns, officials have estimated. Swimming skills aren’t a guarantee against drowning, since frigid water, injury or other factors can result in fatalities in water. But knowing how to swim can help protect children and adults.

Wayne Cleveland, Taariq’s dad, wasn’t frequently around pools as a child and hadn’t taken lessons then. “It was a fear and trust issue,” the 39-year-old said.

Fear of drowning was the strongest reason given for avoiding lessons in the national study.

Many parents who are scared of the water don’t want their children in the water. Other obstacles were beliefs that chlorine was bad for their skin and hair, financial constraints and lack of access to pools.