Making a Safer World for Kids

As soon as you become a parent you try to keep your little one, or little ones in my case, out of trouble and harm’s way. This is sometimes hard when there are so many things that can potentially hurt a little baby or toddler.

My twins are now four and we have had our share of close calls or near disasters. Some were just bad falls and others are creative accidents by the girls.

Listing some of the incidents:

• 6/7 month old child trying to walk and plunging into the corner of the coffee table, it was near her eye and first major incident. I phoned a nurse friend who came and looked at the injury and helped me calm down.  Child was fine, mummy was a mess!
• Same child head dived off daddies chair and got a cut in her forehead. Blood everywhere and trip to hospital to make sure she was fine. All fine just got a butterfly bandage and cuddles with the extra painkillers and all was good
• The other daughter decided to take matters into her own hands when mummy said no to treats and created her own ladder to get into freezer of backyard fridge. She had put her bike onto a big plastic lawn chair and had it balancing on the arms. I found her on top of the bike and thinking she was very clever for her building achievement. I quickly removed the new device to access freezer and told her it was dangerous.
• One child jumped off pretend fridge at playgroup and collected her lower back on a truck
• The other child days after fridge and truck incident did the same injury but she landed on her bike in the backyard.
• Sometimes it is as simple as either one of the girls falling and hitting themselves on the floor, door, or wall. They fly around at such speed that you need to be careful of everyday items causing issues.
• Helping mummy/daddy cook, need to keep clear of hot fry pan and so on. Stay away from the gas stove.  No issues currently but we have had close calls. One of the girls we thought touched the hot stove so we rushed and put her hand under cold water, and this was met with screams of annoyance as she was saying she was fine! We did not know and would rather be safe than be sorry.
• Not stopping to check for traffic when told to stop at a road. Hard to keep up with kids who run everywhere. I have told them that if they don’t we will not go to parks or other places that they like to go. Sounds terrible but I don’t want kids to run across a road and get collected by a car.
• Trying to take off seatbelts whilst the car is moving (I make sure to stop and fix this as I don’t want the child to not wear a seat belt)– You need to have correctly fitted car seats.
• Crossing the road to collect a ball when not looking if there are any cars – As they were not listening they were brought inside immediately.

After the above incidents I have explained to the girls in different ways depending on their age; however the constant problem is that little kids no matter how clever they are don’t listen, if they want to do things they ignore you and go right on doing what they want. As I have realised that the constant repeating and explaining does not work, removal of possible dangerous items is the best all round option. I have removed chairs, toys, sticks, told them they cannot play on certain things due to what they are doing with it, and so on.

If your kids attend childcare you need to make sure that any medication in the nappy bag is removed, I mistakenly left the Nurofen in the bag.  This is due to the kids curiously to go through others bags and if it looks tasty of course it goes in their mouth.  I must say that there was no incident with my bag and its contents, but I do agree that it is a good policy. I have heard of an incident from another centre of babies/toddlers finding a Panadol from bags and swallowing it. This of course is incredibly dangerous and could cause all sorts of issues, if in doubt it is best to check the Raising Children Network’s Medications for children webpage to make sure what is safe.

Have you had some close calls?  Do your kids always end up hurting themselves? Mine are at the moment, but I am trying to make a safer world for kids. What are you doing to make sure your kids are safe?  I would urge you to look at your environment to see what accidents might be prevented. Send in your comments.

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Disclaimer:  ‘I am participating in the National Kidsafe Day Blogger Competition to support and promote child safety, along with the added bonus of chances to win prizes. All opinions are my own and not those of Kidsafe. To find out more or to enter the competition, please visit www.kidsafe.com.au