Teach your child how to be safe from accidents in the home

• Did you know that home accidents are the most common cause of visits to accident and emergency departments?
• Arnidol^® explains how to teach your child about accident prevention from an early age.
• How do you protect your child from home accidents?

There’s no way your child is never going to fall over while playing, or graze her knee or come home with a bruise. It’s part and parcel of being a kid. Most of the time it’s all minor. However, there is one cause for concern: home accidents.

Home accidents are a major cause of childhood deaths and the most common reason for childhood visits to accident and emergency departments. Many occur through adult carelessness, but they also result from children’s natural curiosity, ignorance of risk, their desire to be more independent and a tendency to imitate adult behaviour.

This means that most accidents are foreseeable and, therefore, avoidable. You can take steps in this regard but the most important thing is that you teach your child to prevent them. How? By directing her curiosity, putting a stop to disobedience and helping her to learn.

Don’t teach her to be afraid of anything and everything, but explain that certain types of behaviour can be dangerous, for instance…

1. … don’t walk around the house barefoot, especially in the kitchen, because there could be broken glass and she can bang her feet on the furniture
2. … jumping on the furniture is not acceptable behaviour.
3. … stand away from the window to look out, don’t lean on the sill or frame or lean out. And don’t let her see you do it!
4. … before you put your hands under the tap or get into the bath, check that the water isn’t too hot. Show her how you do it!
5. … don’t put toys in our mouth because you could swallow them.
6. … playing with knives, forks or other sharp objects is dangerous.
7. … wear a helmet when skating or riding your bike, that way if you fall you won’t hurt your head. Wear yours too when you go skating or ride a bike with her!
8. … teach her road safety: don’t cross the road without a grown-up, especially when the traffic light is red, walk on the pavement, look where you’re walking… Set an example!
9. … on sunny days protect your skin with suntan lotion or you can burn. Show her how!

What can you do to protect your child?

Try to keep the floors as clear as possible, especially where people walk. Put non-slip stickers in the bath andguards on the corners of tables and cover electric sockets. If your home has stairs, fit safety gates. Put grills and bars on the windows and don’t put furniture too close to them.

In the kitchen, keep your child away from the stove. Cover pans and make sure the handles point inwards, not out from the worktop. Keep knives, matches, lighters and any other sharp or dangerous objects out of reach. It is also important to keep medicines and cleaning products where your child can’t get them.

As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure.