Young children rely upon parents and caregivers to provide for them, including food, shelter, comfort, play and a safe place in which to grow, learn, and experience in. A safe home requires parents and caregivers to investigate their homes for risks as well as provide adequate supervision of children.
To determine where potential hazards are, look at the space from the child’s point of view. Get down on your hands and knees and crawl around. Remove anything that is breakable or valuable and anything that children can pull down on themselves. Parents and caregivers need to balance keeping the home hazard-free with allowing children to explore, play, and learn. Parents and caregivers must provide adequate supervision of children while they are in the home. Injuries often happen when caregivers are not directly supervising young children.
Direct supervision means that a caregiver is within arm’s reach and is watching what the child is doing. The younger and/or more impulsive the child, the more important it is to stay within reach of the child so the caregiver can move quickly to stop behaviours that might result in an injury. Caregivers who are attuned to their children’s skills and abilities will know when it is safe to give more freedom. A child who is three years old requires very different supervision than a child who is eight. Supervision can change depending on the child’s developmental stage and his individual needs. Effective supervision means the right combination of physical closeness to the child and attention to what the child is doing.
To help parents remember important steps to keep their kids safe, Safe Kids and Tide developed a new interactive graphic focusing on a range of risks in the home. This 360-degree graphic takes you inside a toddler’s home to show some of the issues parents may have missed when trying to make their home safer for young children, including proper storage of laundry packets.
Rover the Home Safety Hound teaches children how to become Safety Stars throughout this activity book.
Children are naturally curious and learn by hearing, touching, and tasting the things around them. Children however, do not understand that they can be seriously injured by some things in their environment, such as touching a hot stove burner or tasting the cleaning agent that looks and smells like orange juice. Creating a safe home environment is important to ensure children can explore and experience the world around them without risk of injury.
Children with special needs are at an increased risk of home injuries including falls, burns, poisoning, and choking and may require additional safety precautions due to their physical or cognitive abilities. Creating a safe environment for a child with special needs is an important step to ensuring that child’s continued well-being.
Follow the links below to view videos that have been produced by ‘Safe Kids USA’. These videos outline important home safety for families and in particular for families with children with special needs.
