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Comment by Faaak | Hacker News Reader

Relax, this was commonly done in baby swimming lessons in Switzerland. Not that big of a deal

They did this to me while I was 6 or 7 and my parents sent me to swimming lessons. Instructor threw me in an olympic sized poll while I had no clue on how to swim. Took me 30 years and a private instructor to get back and actually learn to swim. Great times. :)

How is that a counterargument? "Relax, parents regularly beat their kids with sticks for centuries and they were fine.."

Every time I hear this (my dad is a firm believer, for example, not you, parent commenter), I just ask if we have the same definition of "fine," because we're talking about whether it's OK to hit a child with a stick and they've taken "pro," so I'm not sure we do.

If it's not OK to hit an adult with a stick, it's not OK to hit a child with a stick! And it boggles my mind that this requires explanation.

Maybe it’s different in Switzerland, but when I took our baby to baby swimming, it did not involve just suddenly throwing the child into the water.

Baby swimming here (Germany) included not throwing them in the water, but placing them underwater manually for a short time; basically a very short dive. This works for infants because they have a reflex where they stop breathing when water hits their face.

However, reading up on that now, the fun thing seems to be that no one can reliably tell when that reflex stops. Could be a few months, could be just a few weeks, so the recommendation is to just not do it. TIL. In any case, throwing a child in the water should just not be done. Period.

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