MISSOURI CITY, Texas \u2013 Drowning deaths are on the rise in the Houston area, and experts say families need to take water safety seriously this summer.<\/p>\n
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional death for children ages 5 to 14 \u2014 a sobering statistic that local swim schools are working hard to change.<\/p>\n
Aqua Tots, a swim school in Missouri City, is on a mission to help families stay safe while having fun in the water.<\/p>\n
ABCs of swimming safety<\/p>\n
Sarita Guzman, general manager at Aqua Tots, said the school promotes what it calls the \u201cABCs of swimming\u201d \u2014 a simple framework designed to keep children safe near any body of water.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere at Aqua Tots, we love to promote safe and confident swimmers. That\u2019s our first mission overall,\u201d Guzman said.<\/p>\n
The first letter, A, stands for adult supervision. Guzman said parents and caregivers should always stay within arm\u2019s reach of young children near water.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always want to try to be within arm\u2019s length of your child, anytime we\u2019re near any bodies of water, just in case there is a fall in, a trip, anything \u2014 we can reach in and scoop them up,\u201d Guzman said.<\/p>\n
B stands for boundaries. Guzman encourages families to use pool gates, fences and covers whenever possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of our boundaries sometimes are preventable, some not. We love pool gates, we love pool fences, pool covers, but in those cases that we don\u2019t have those boundaries, we teach all of our swimmers how to safely get up out of them and find their air,\u201d Guzman said.<\/p>\n
The final letter, C, stands for swim classes \u2014 which Aqua Tots says can be life-saving.<\/p>\n
Why swim lessons matter<\/p>\n
Sisters Grace and Hannah John, ages 10 and 9, have been taking swim classes at Aqua Tots for three years. When asked why following their parents\u2019 water safety rules is important, they kept it simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that you don\u2019t drown or, like, stay safe in the water,\u201d the sisters said.<\/p>\n
Ross Steward, aquatic manager at Aqua Tots, said drowning can happen without warning \u2014 even when adults are present.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there\u2019s multiple adults present, they should rotate about every 30 minutes, keeping a watchful eye for the kids. You don\u2019t have to stay at the water, but just be sure, you know, come to the water, get a nice, good scan of what\u2019s going on. Drowning can happen silently,\u201d Steward said.<\/p>\n
Guzman said the school recently received a sobering phone call that underscores just how quickly things can go wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a parent this morning call in tears saying that her child \u2014 she almost lost him. He went down under water. He wasn\u2019t coming back up. Nobody was watching,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The numbers behind water safety<\/p>\n
According to Aqua Tots, the ABCs framework is backed by real results. Boundaries reduce drowning risk by 69%, adult supervision is 99% effective and taking swim classes reduces drowning risk by 98%.<\/p>\n
As drowning deaths continue to climb in the Houston area, Aqua Tots encourages all families to make water safety a priority \u2014 before heading to the pool.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MISSOURI CITY, Texas \u2013 Drowning deaths are on the rise in the Houston area, and experts say families…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[128854,128856,56,58,57,128858,128857,128855],"class_list":["post-363397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-children-water-safety","tag-drowning-statistics-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-kids-swim-classes","tag-swim-class-benefits","tag-swimming-safety-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}