A controversial TikTok video of a toddler learning how to swim is going viral after some people saw the actions that took place in the video as cruel rather than helpful. However, as the person who shared the video on TikTok wrote, “What if you never heard your child cry again bc you didn’t prepare them with aquatic survival.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “from 2005-2014, there were an average of 3,536 fatal unintentional, non-boating related, drownings each year in the United States. As the CDC explains, that equals out to about ten deaths per day, and about one in five people who die from unintentional drowning are children 14 years old and younger.”
@whynot0818 3yo in winter clothes ##littleloggerheadsswimschool ##aquaticsurvival ##swimfloatswim ##swimlessonssavelives ##survivalswimlessons ##drowningprevention
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Viral Controversial TikTok Video Shows Swim Teacher Letting a Fully Clothed Toddler Fall in a Pool
As a result of that scary statistic, people like Bode and Morgan Miller and Granger and Amber Smith, who have lost children to accidental drownings, have made it their mission to share the importance of teaching your children to swim as young as six months old. And that’s exactly the point of this TikTok video as well.
@whynot0818 1yo coat, shoes, regular diaper. What if you never heard your child cry again bc you didn’t prepare them with ##aquaticsurvival ##swimlessons
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In the TikTok video, a 1-year-old child wearing a winter jacket, pants, shoes, and a diaper is seen being pushed into a pool that is also occupied by a swim instructor. The swim instructor, though closeby, does not aid the toddler as she works hard to go from facedown in the water to on her back.
Eventually, with the help of a few tears and some audible grunts, the toddler does exactly what she was taught to do. She turns onto her back so that her face is out of the water. As the caption revealed, while it may be hard to watch and hear, “crying [equals] breathing. We want to find our children face up in the water.”
While the comments for this specific video has been turned off, people took issue with these types of water survival techniques earlier this year when a similar video surfaced on Twitter. (Warning: This tweet contains offensive language.)
And although some people applauded the purpose of the TikTok video, to teach young children how to survive if they ever find themselves in water without an adult present, others found it appalling. “Oh my god, this kid is gonna have severe water traumas in the future Wtf with this lady? Do that to my baby and I’ll drown you right on the spot,” one commenter wrote.
@whynot0818 3yo ##aquaticsurvival ##littleloggerheadsswimschool ##swimfloatswim ##swimlessonssavelives ##survivalswimlessons ##drowningprevention ##swimminglessons ##fyp
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What are your thoughts?