The Judah Brown Project

 On a 90 minute drive last week, I listened to this episode of the Suffer the Little Children Podcast. The host, Laine, took a break from talking about child abuse to talk about water safety. She interviewed a woman named Christi Brown who is the founder of The Judah Brown Project. It was named after her son who died at age 3 in 2016 from an accidental drowning.

Photo of Judah Brown taken from the Judah Brown project webpage linked above 

Similar to car seat safety, it seems like so many recommendations have changed since I started working with children and since I had a small child. We used to swear by “floaties”! But as it turns out, floaties in pools tend to give children a false sense of security. 

She talked about teaching infants as young as 6 months old “survival swimming”, which I had seen videos of before, and it gave me an anxiety attack!  Here is an example of an infant survival swimming lesson. Please don’t try this at home with your own baby! Take them to a professional such as shown in this video. 

For a few days after listening to that episode, I was a little jarred thinking “everything I was taught about this was wrong.” I am not even sure my own daughter, now 17 and a half, ever truly learned to swim. She *always* had floaties.

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