A child’s safety is often the number one thing on any parent’s mind in any situation. This is especially true with younger children, because they need some extra help from their caregiver to learn good safety habits. In 2018, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption reported that around 74% of children adopted were under the age of 9. So, safety is definitely an important concern for many parents, and Arms Wide is here to give you some quick resources to making your child’s environment a safer one!
Home Safety
First and foremost, keeping your home safe is extremely important, as your child or children spends most of their time here.
The Safety Rules Guide by Safe Home is an amazing resource! It guides you on some important Do’s and Don’ts for common household items at home! It also has great tips on emergency preparedness, stranger danger, and safety at school with knowing the family’s information.
Did you know over 4 million children experience household injuries? The Child Safety Guide can help you make your home as safe as possible! It outlines potential dangers in your home’s different rooms, usual and unusual injuries for children and how to prevent them.
This Child Safety Article by Consumer Notice is especially helpful with Baby-proofing tips, as well as food and formula (for babies) safety! Another important situation it helps with is firearm safety. If you keep firearms at home, this article gives some helpful tips on how to maintain safety. It also guides on a multitude of other situations to keep your child safe in.
Sleep Safety
For babies, sleep safety is quite important. Even for children, creating good habits in sleeping can help with their emotional and physical development. Here are some good resources:
The Parent’s Guide to Healthier Children’s Sleep is very helpful in detailing the sleep requirements and tips for different ages of newborns, good sleeping habits, as well as how to help with common sleeping issues in children such as night terrors.
This Q&A ,answered by a Pediatrician, pertains to babies. It is a great resource in ensuring you’re practicing good sleeping habits for your baby. This way they are as safe as possible!
Lastly, these quick 4 Safety Tips on how to make sure your baby is sleeping correctly will help give both of you a peace of mind at night.
Vehicle Safety
Cars are often the primary form of transportation for many families. It is imperative that you have all the right resources to ensure your vehicle is safe!
Parenting Tips offers some great overall Vehicle Safety Tips for children of all ages. They also outline best practices for driveway and parking safety, hot cars, and helping children understand car safety.
This source focused completely on Car Seats is amazing for understanding them, giving tips on installation, and which type to use based on your child’s age/ height!
Street Safety
Many children above the age 10 often walk to school by themselves or the park with their friends. Even when you are with them (like in the mall), they often wander off. This is why children need to understand street safety and stranger danger to understand how to keep themselves safe.
Safe Kids gives 5 great tips on Pedestrian Safety to make sure your child understands to look both ways before crossing the street and setting some ground rules when walking outside.
Pete’s Street Smarts is a great video to show your children to visualize the importance of staying safe on the streets!
These Stranger Danger tips are extremely important and gives information on how you should explain staying safe on the street to your kids, as well as what they should do if they find themselves in an unsafe situation.
Water Safety
Most children love going to the pool and waterparks. However, these can sometimes be dangerous if they aren’t careful. Here are some tips to make sure they’re safe in these settings and that they can have fun!
These 7 Water Safety Tips are amazing for general good habits when going to the pool or waterpark, as well as giving support in how to make sure someone is always keeping an eye on the children and preventing accidents!
This Water Safety Guide has great tips on not only keeping your child safe and giving tips on what to do in accidents, but also on how to keep your child safe during vacations, since it can easier to get distracted.
It’s important to note that even after you’ve taken every single precaution, your child will still probably get hurt. This could be due to accidents at school, in the backyard, in a park, or even at home. Yet, it will likely be much less harmful, because you took other safety precautions. For example, you get into a car accident with your young child in the car. However, your child was properly buckled in their car seat. As a result, your child is much less harmed, because you took every step to keep them safe. You won’t be able to control everything, but you can take precautions to prevent accidents or minimize the effects!
We hope these tips help and wish you happy parenting!
You can always visit our Resources page for other helpful links pertaining to support for families that foster, permanency support, emergency preparedness, and anything else you might need extra support in. Arms Wide is here to help you in any way we can!