“The lifeguard’s there watching everyone’s kids,” Lau says. “It’s easy to miss.”Įven when there’s a lifeguard on duty, parents should still watch their children. Tragically, we’ve seen how a distracted parent has missed that their child was in distress and drowning just a few feet away.” Children drown quickly, often when they are vertical in the water with their head tipped back, Lau explains. “But when everyone’s watching, no one is. “Parents may have a false sense of security that there are all these moms and dads around so they feel like everyone’s watching the kids,” she says. Learning to swim makes drowning less likely, but neither lessons nor flotation devices should replace close, dedicated supervision, Lau says. “Oceans, creeks, or lakes can have uneven surfaces, unpredictable depths, waves, and currents that make swimming much more challenging,” she says. Lau recommends pools rather than open water for young or inexperienced swimmers. “The goal is to get young children comfortable in the water,” Lau says, “and start building their swim-readiness skills.” The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends starting lessons between the ages of one and four, depending upon when the child is developmentally ready. Swim lessons are essential for summer safety-the earlier, the better. “Explain to them, ‘You know how you don’t cross the street without a grown-up? You shouldn’t go in or near water without a grown-up, either,'” she says. For that reason, Lau recommends teaching young children that water can be dangerous-just like cars. Sometimes, parents may not be aware of a drowning risk, such as a neighbor’s yard where there’s a small fishpond. Infants and young children should always be supervised and within an arm’s reach of their caretaker during bath time.
“We’ve seen cases where the briefest distractions have led to tragedy,” Lau says. Two-thirds of drownings among infants under a year old occur in a bathtub. “A child can drown in less than two inches of water,” Lau says. Explain the riskĭrowning can happen wherever there’s water-streams, lakes, and water parks as well as things around the house, like toilets. Lau, manager of the Pediatric Trauma and Injury Prevention Program at Penn State Health Children’s Hospital, shares what you should do to ensure your kids’ safety in water this summer. For their custom silicone tails - which start at about $5,000 - Finfolk isn’t even taking new orders while they clear their years-long backlog of orders.Expert Jen Lau has advice for parents to prevent children from drowning.ĭrowning is often preventable-including incidents where children have drowned right in front of their parents, who never even realized their child was in trouble. The company currently has a 12-16 week waiting list for new fabric tails, which range from $215-$785.
The Roberts sisters say their slice of that is a seven-figure business already, and they are growing. “Especially because when you when you go to tell people that you make mermaid tails for a living, they don’t see this whole warehouse building, that we have with an entire team of people that’s doing special effects level work, as well as a bunch of sublimation printing and sewing work.”įinfolk is one of several companies producing swimmable mermaid tails, in what’s estimated to be a $143.3 million market for such products.
MERMAID TAILS PROFESSIONAL
There is a thousand-gallon tank in the basement and an even larger one outside the building, where professional mermaids model the tails for the company’s large social media following.
MERMAID TAILS PLUS
The whimsical space has walls with seascape murals painted by the Roberts’ sisters dad, plus several dogs milling among the sewing machines, work tables and boxes of colorful mermaid tails. The Roberts sisters started making silicone mermaid tails about a decade ago but have recently shifted more of the business to comparatively affordable fabric tails. From left to right: Finfolk production manager and professional mermaid Hannah Burgess, fellow mermaid Danielle Houston, Abby Roberts, and Bryn (Roberts) Decker.
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