Water skills = safety

Swimming, sunscreen, and stock tanks

Montessori introduces skills early, so children become increasingly capable as they get older. Becoming a capable child who grows into a capable adult happens step-by-step.

Start now! Even if you missed the super early days, your child is still young. I also encourage adults to work on a wide range of skills. These things always end up coming in handy during one’s life.

I like this video because the teacher used a gentle introduction to the water and swimming. It is quite similar to the way I teach children to swim.

Nowadays, plenty of adults are keeling over, so your children are safest if they can get themselves out of the water by themselves.

Avoid plastic pools! I know, I know… I loved mine, too. But endocrine disruptors are serious, which is why we got rid of ours. Go for an outdoor sprinkler, a small inground tile pool, a pond, or a stainless-steel tub.

Remember that galvanized metal usually contains lead — it is part of the galvanization process. No stock tank pools for the kiddos, unless yours happens to test lead-free. I only figured this out AFTER I bought my own stock tank with the idea of making such a little pool. Rain came and the resulting tadpoles all died. When tadpoles die, it’s pretty serious. I felt horrible about it, but the only thing I can do is not use it. And share the news.

On the upside, I am looking at Becky Bee’s hot tub book on her little site. It definitely has pool-pond potential!

With water comes plenty of sunshine. Now that the FDA has decided to let us know the chemicals in sunscreen are officially cancer-causing — for example, benzene has been known to cause cancer for at least 100 years, but better late than never, I suppose — everyone can use the old-fashioned sunblock: a hat.

There is no chemical or biological free lunch. Nothing magically protects your skin without a cost. Even zinc will strip your microbiome, which is now looking like it is responsible for allowing our skin to use the sunshine.

Great grandma had a straw hat and a tan. And no sunglasses.

It’s interesting that the retina seems to be responsible for telling our body how to handle the sunshine. No need to mess up this mechanism.