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European pools generally ask under children under 14 or so who go swimming unattended whether they have swimming diplomas. If you complete your swimming diploma

European pools generally ask under children under 14 or so who go swimming unattended whether they have swimming diplomas. If you complete your swimming diplomas, you get stickers for your swim shorts to show you have completed them. Generally certain rides in water parks, like fast slides or streams will require you to have higher levels of swimming training to go on if you're under 14.

watwut 7y ago
I live in Europe and never seen this.
- Hamuko 7y ago
  I live in Europe and while we did have some kind of stickers for attending swimming school, I don't think those were something that you'd actual have on you.
  - trissi 7y ago
    For me and my buddys in school it was quite a thing of "pride" to have the better diploma's (there was a beginner one + bronze to gold) (this was around 2004)
mcv 7y ago
The sticker or badge on your swimming trunks is something really archaic. I had one in the early 1980s, but I haven't seen them since.
- rndgermandude 7y ago
  I had such stickers on my trunks into the mid 90s.
- trissi 7y ago
  I had one around 2004 (got it as part of swimming lessons in a german elementary school)
rndgermandude 7y ago
I remember I was asked a bunch of times if I had my "free swimmer" (Freischwimmer, Bronze)[1] by lifeguards when I was pre-teen in Germany, indeed. Tho, that wasn't something they did every time, more like spot checks. My parents were wise enough to enroll me in a course so I got my "early swimmer" (seahorse, Seepferdchen) training by age 6; that doesn't make you into a good swimmer yet, but at least you know the basics. Then elementary school took over and I got up to the gold diploma by age 10. By age 8 or so I already was a far better swimmer than my parents, who never had any formal training. I remember my mom once refusing to take one of my friends with us swimming when I was like 8 or 9 because he didn't have any swimming diplomas yet (he had only come to Germany from Tunisia like a year prior and was in the process of catching up with swimming ed). I remember I was mad at the time, but in hindsight it was absolutely the right decision. Still, we all knew stories of kids relatively close to us drowning; for me it was the little brother of a friend of my sisters who drowned when he went to a water park as part of a kids birthday. The "usual" had happened: the two parents of the birthday kid being too overwhelmed by 10 or so loud kids amped up on candy and not trained lifeguards anyway, not enough lifeguards, wave pool... the adults didn't even notice they had lost track of this one kid until they saw the lifeguard pulling him out of the water, too late, or so the story went. [1] https://www.dlrg.de/informieren/ausbildung/schwimmabzeichen https://www.dlrg.de/informieren/ausbildung/schwimmabzeichen [German]
- brndr 7y ago
  Swimming education in Germany is highly standardized. The "Bundesverband zur Förderung der Schwimmausbildung" (federal association in furtherance of swimming education) consists of different lifesaving and sports organizations and has recently published new examination regulations which highered the standards for swimming badges. All swimmming instructors in those organizations will tell you that you should permanently keep an eye on your kids and don't let them go to the pool alone until they complete the bronze badge which requires you to swim for fifteen minutes, dive down to two meters and jump into the water. Only after you complete this test you are considered a "safe swimmer".

watwut 7y ago

I live in Europe and never seen this.

Hamuko 7y ago
I live in Europe and while we did have some kind of stickers for attending swimming school, I don't think those were something that you'd actual have on you.
- trissi 7y ago
  For me and my buddys in school it was quite a thing of "pride" to have the better diploma's (there was a beginner one + bronze to gold) (this was around 2004)

mcv 7y ago

The sticker or badge on your swimming trunks is something really archaic. I had one in the early 1980s, but I haven't seen them since.

rndgermandude 7y ago
I had such stickers on my trunks into the mid 90s.
trissi 7y ago
I had one around 2004 (got it as part of swimming lessons in a german elementary school)

rndgermandude 7y ago

I remember I was asked a bunch of times if I had my "free swimmer" (Freischwimmer, Bronze)[1] by lifeguards when I was pre-teen in Germany, indeed. Tho, that wasn't something they did every time, more like spot checks. My parents were wise enough to enroll me in a course so I got my "early swimmer" (seahorse, Seepferdchen) training by age 6; that doesn't make you into a good swimmer yet, but at least you know the basics. Then elementary school took over and I got up to the gold diploma by age 10. By age 8 or so I already was a far better swimmer than my parents, who never had any formal training. I remember my mom once refusing to take one of my friends with us swimming when I was like 8 or 9 because he didn't have any swimming diplomas yet (he had only come to Germany from Tunisia like a year prior and was in the process of catching up with swimming ed). I remember I was mad at the time, but in hindsight it was absolutely the right decision. Still, we all knew stories of kids relatively close to us drowning; for me it was the little brother of a friend of my sisters who drowned when he went to a water park as part of a kids birthday. The "usual" had happened: the two parents of the birthday kid being too overwhelmed by 10 or so loud kids amped up on candy and not trained lifeguards anyway, not enough lifeguards, wave pool... the adults didn't even notice they had lost track of this one kid until they saw the lifeguard pulling him out of the water, too late, or so the story went. [1] https://www.dlrg.de/informieren/ausbildung/schwimmabzeichen https://www.dlrg.de/informieren/ausbildung/schwimmabzeichen [German]

brndr 7y ago
Swimming education in Germany is highly standardized. The "Bundesverband zur Förderung der Schwimmausbildung" (federal association in furtherance of swimming education) consists of different lifesaving and sports organizations and has recently published new examination regulations which highered the standards for swimming badges. All swimmming instructors in those organizations will tell you that you should permanently keep an eye on your kids and don't let them go to the pool alone until they complete the bronze badge which requires you to swim for fifteen minutes, dive down to two meters and jump into the water. Only after you complete this test you are considered a "safe swimmer".