Friday, September 19, 2008

Child Safety at Home - Is Your Child Safe? Peace of Mind For Parents and Grandparents ( Child Home Safety )

Over 1 million children under the age of 15 are taken to Accident and Emergency Units in the UK each year after an accident in the home or garden. Many more are treated by General Practitioners and by parents and carers. Those most at risk from a home accident are the 0-4 years age group. Falls account for the majority of non-fatal accidents whilst the highest number of deaths are due to fire. Most of these accidents are preventable through increased awareness and vigilance, improvements in the home environment and the use of appropriate safety products.

So what can we do to keep our kids safe in their homes?

Some rough and tumble is an essential part of childhood play and of learning so don't get too protective or over-anxious. However, some basic safety precautions do need to be in place if children are to feel safe enough to explore, have fun and thrive in the home environment.

Firstly, get your home fitted with smoke alarms. This is absolutely vital for everyone and there is no excuse for not doing it. Local services may vary but in my area of Yorkshire the local fire service will come and fit as many fire alarms as needed in appropriate places in the homes of anyone who asks - all free of charge. There is no mess and batteries last for many years. Ring your local Fire Officer and find out what can be done in your area. Similarly, carbon monoxide alarms are an essential part of safety in the home - these are even easier as they don't need fixing to the wall at all - ours sits on top of our kitchen wall unit. These are available from Mothercare and from DIY shops.

You may also need:

* Stairgates - if you have stairs then you need a stairgate at the top and bottom plus safety gates in other key places depending on your floor layout, for example you may want to fix a gate across the kitchen doorway. Prices start at about £20 depending on fittings and some have extensions for wider gaps.
* A Fire Guard is a must if you have an open fire or one that is gas or electric. These are available in a variety of styles and sizes from about £20, some special offers on now, don't leave it until next winter to provide what is needed.
* A Baby Monitor provides parents with reassurance when the baby is asleep - these vary in price as some have sophisticated extras. Use will depend on where baby sleeps in relation to where his carers are during the evening.
* Bed Guards are to prevent children from falling out of bed - these are offered in attractive colours and will fold outwards or downwards when not in use. They can be purchased in pairs if there are two exposed sides to the bed or singly if the bed is against a wall.
* Electric Socket Guards to prevent tiny fingers from poking in sockets.
* A selection of gadgets to fasten bookcases and cupboards to the wall so they don't topple when little ones start pulling themselves upright.
* Window Fasteners to stop little ones opening the windows wide enough to climb out.
* Cooker Guards to prevent children from pulling hot pans down.
* Kitchen Cupboard and Fridge Locks to keep knives, bleach and other dangers from little fingers.
* Corner Cushions to cover those sharp corners on the edge of furniture.
* Door Slam Stoppers prevent accidents involving trapped fingers in slamming doors.

Lots more is available - check out Mothercare and Kiddies Kingdom for starters. And don't forget to childproof the homes of grandparents and other relatives where your child/ren spend time!

Margot Rowan is a teacher, writer and education adviser. Her website at http://www.joyndelight.com is full of essentials and treats for babies and toddlers, including safety gates, fireguards, bed rails, baby monitors, safety locks and gadgets and much more.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Margaret_Rowan

Child Home Safety

Monday, September 15, 2008

Tips to Keep Your Child Safe ( Child Home Safety )

There can be nothing more important than child safety. Happiness and health depend on it – without it, the future is bleak for the adult-to-be. But nobody can be watching their children at all times of the day or night – nor would it be healthy. Rather, the good parent or guardian is one who is able to teach the child guidelines for safety. This way, they are effectively present with the child at all times, and can put their minds at rest. From the moment of a child’s conception until adulthood and beyond, the child is exposed to countless dangers. Infant mortality rates only began to improve in the last century, , and especially with the development of antibiotics. Worldwide, the worst dangers for kids in terms of mortality continue to be pneumonia and dehydration caused by diarrhea. In developed countries, abuse and AIDS pose a threat.

The first rule of child safety is “don’t talk to strangers”, but we all know that the perpetrators of unwonted violence on children tends to be people he or she knows well, often even members of the family. Children have difficulty in any case grasping the concept of “stranger”. They should be taught to always check with the parent or guardian before going anywhere, and to talk to a trusted adult if they feel scared or confused about a particular contact person.

Adults should not forget that older children, between 11 and 17, are equally at risk from victimisation, and extra efforts should be made as the teenager inevitably begins to have more freedom. Some people would like to be able to rely on a tracking device or mobile phone to keep tabs on a child, but a mechanical means cannot replace educating the child and maintaining a healthy, communicative relationship and an awareness of where the dangers might be.

Parents and guardians should take the chance to reinforce safety skills as it presents itself. If your child asks you about an incident which has occurred in your neighbourhood, answer frankly and with confidence, inviting discussion on safety rules. Rules will help so that a child knows how to define a dangerous situation and how to act on it. Make sure your children know who they can turn to at a time of crisis. Another nightmare all parents suffer from is the risk of fire. There are obvious rules here that a child must be made aware of, such as not playing with matches, not placing toys on heaters and never switching on the cooker.
In modern times, there are all kinds of dangers for the child which did not even exist when their parents were growing up, such as substance abuse, television and its possible negative influences and the thorny question of the internet .

You should talk to kids about the rewards and risks of Internet use, and there are also resources to help you regulate this.Check out, for example the useful workshop at NetSmartz.org. Online child sexual exploitation can be reported to to CyberTipline® at cybertipline.com. Accidents can always happen, but as with all aspects of child care, a little education goes a long way to preventing disaster.

Kelly Hunter operates
http://www.child-safety-center.com and writes about Child Safety.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kelly_Hunter

Child Home Safety

Monday, September 8, 2008

16 Kitchen Safety Tips ( Child Home Safety )

Child Home Safety
Make cooking fun and your children will beg you to help in the kitchen. Make cooking a chore, and your children will run for cover the moment you mention it's time to cook or make your life so miserable you kick them out of the kitchen. Either way, your children need to understand the importance of kitchen safety and safe cooking.

Understanding the dangers of the kitchen and how to prevent them is an essential life tool that all children should learn. Whether your children want to take over as household "Chefs" or simply wants to learn how to feed themselves when they move out on their own, I invite you to read these important kitchen safety tips and share them with your children, today.

Kitchen Safety Tips:
1. Supervise young children and first-time chefs. Never let your child cook alone. 2. Develop patience. Your children will make fewer mistakes when they are enjoying the process and not worrying about getting yelled at. 3. Handle kitchen products properly. Don't assume your children will know what to do with kitchen products just by watching you in the kitchen. Take the time to explain how each product works, as it's needed for each recipe. 4. Understand fire safety. Explain how the fire extinguisher works, how to put out a grease fire, and when to call 911. 5. Wear short sleeves. Long sleeves have a chance of catching fire or falling into hot grease or boiling water. 6. Wear an apron. Aprons help protect clothes and add extra padding in case of spilt hot water, splattered oil, etc. 7. Use oven mitts. Never use a towel to move hot pans because the loose parts of the towel can fall onto a hot burner and catch on fire. Oven mitts are safer because they help your children hold onto the handle of a hot pan more securely. 8. Wash your hands. Hands carry germs and can contaminate food. 9. Keep pan handles facing in and over countertops. Pan handles should never extend over the hot stove and definitely not out towards the floor where someone could bump the handle and spill a pot of hot food on him. 10. Never leave food unattended. Unwatched pots can spill over causing fires and other kitchen hazards. 11. Clean up spills. Serious injuries occur when others slip and fall because of wet floors or foreign objects, so make sure your children understand the importance of cleaning up a spill as it occurs. (Always have a mop or rag handy.) 12. Speed clean ups. Teach your children to clean while they wait for the next stage in preparing the food (i.e. water boils, soup simmers, etc.). 13. Never eat raw meats or poultry. Raw poultry can lead to food poisoning (i.e. salmonella). 14. Wash surfaces where raw meats and poultry touched. Surfaces touched by raw meat should be cleaned before placing another food product on that surface to prevent cross contamination. 15. Keep raw food separate from cooked food. Never place cooked food back on a plate that once contained raw food. 16. Metal and microwaves don't mix. Any object that contains metal or aluminum should not be placed into a microwave because doing so could cause a fire.


And finally, listen to your children. Making your children cook foods they don't like could cause them to cook out of anger, become careless in the kitchen, and in the end get seriously hurt.

If one of your children shows enthusiasm when you ask him to help bake a cake, stir up a batch of cookies, or knead dough but enters the kitchen kicking and screaming at the mention of helping you cook meat or a side-dish, don't force him to cook the meal-not yet anyway. Sometimes, children need to start off doing what they love in the kitchen and then graduate into cooking other food items. If you push too hard, you could turn your child off of cooking forever.

Alyice Edrich is the author of the highly praised daycare e-book, Tid-Bits For In-Home Daycare Providers. If you like small children and want to stay home with your children, but don't want to deal with home party plans, inventory, or sales people, you could enjoy a career as a home daycare provider.
Learn more: http://thedabblingmum.com/ebookstore

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alyice_Edrich

Child Home Safety

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Child Bed Safety Rails ( Child Home Safety )

Child Home Safety

What could scare your child more than the Boogieman? A fall from his bed! You may be able to put him to sleep by reading him bedtime stories, singing lullabies, or rocking him gently, but can you stop worrying long enough to have a good night’s sleep as well? Child bed safety rails may not assure your little one that the Boogieman is a myth, but it can assure both of you that he won’t fall off his bed.

There are several child bed safety rails available in the market. Before buying a particular one, it is imperative that you go over the product description to make sure that the child bed safety rails you intend to buy fit the bed that you are going to attach it to. There are products that are supposed to be attached to the top of the mattress and not adjacent to it. The purpose for this is to avoid the incidence of your child being caught between the bed and the child bed safety rails.

The other type of child bed safety rails would require you to attach them at the sides of the bed. Some products from this type are admittedly unsafe for use because it offers the chance for children to become entrapped between the mattress and the child bed safety rails. However, there are some products that provide a snug fit leaving no space between the bed and the rails.

There are also child bed safety rails that guard both sides of the bed. These are most useful to use if the child’s bed is in the center of the room or in the absence of a wall side. Most of these products are attached together from under the mattress, giving it a snug and an unmovable fit. This particular mechanism eliminates the chance of the child to roll between the bed and the child bed safety rails.

Even if the child bed safety rails are designed to prevent any accidents to happen during bedtime, it is ironic that a lot of reported deaths and injuries in children are related to the use of these products. These cases were either due to the entrapment of the children between the bed and the child bed safety rails or their slipping through the bars or mesh of the rails.
The study on these rails-related cases has caused parents to think twice about using these products for their children. However, the number of deaths and injuries from falls are more alarming. Child bed safety rails are the angels that they are created to be, but letting them function as such depends on how well you choose the products. They should be able to take care of your child on his most vulnerable hours.

Milos Pesic is a successful webmaster and owner of popular and comprehensive Child Safety information site. For more articles and resources on Child Safety related topics, visit his site at:

=>http://child-safety.need-to-know.net/
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Milos_Pesic

Child Home Safety