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Myself and my siblings all lived on a fairly large rural farm with 2 large bodies of water that we always hung around unsupervised from about 4 y/o onwards. We loved catching bullfrogs and watching the fishes and stuff. Our mom gave us very strict/scary warnings about never going in and being careful, but other than that we were pretty free thankfully. 5 y/o with a good warning seems totally fine.

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Survivorship bias.

More children ages 1–4 die from drowning than any other cause of death. For children ages 5–14, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death after motor vehicle crashes.

https://www.cdc.gov/drowning/data-research/facts/index.html

Do you think young children should never be in a car either? There is always a chance of death, and at some point you have to let your kids enjoy life, some of my best memories are at that pond watching dragonflies and listening to the water splash. It just seems so sad to not allow a child to be free to enjoy the natural world, yes a very scary speech about the dangers is important, but at some point it's important to let children learn on their own I think... I don't know... I'm just really glad I had the freedom and always remember my childhood alone in the woods and at the farm with deep happiness that I never felt locked up in a house or classroom despite those being super safe.

Children in a car get expensive, cumbersome equipment to protect them. And of course they are never unsupervised when they are driving around. They don't get freedom.

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