How to Keep Children Safe, Part 2: At Home

[Editor’s note: This is a 6-part series regarding my views and plenty of common sense on how to keep your children safe in a dangerous world. It is generally geared toward children 12 and under. I hope it helps you.]

There’s so much that can be covered here, from fire safety to safety topics by age. Before adding my own opinion, I would encourage you to spend some time reading the references and guides found in the Home and Personal Safety page, especially regarding Fire Safety. In addition, I keep dozens of Child Safety videos on the Home Safety and Security Videos page (links directly to the child safety section) that are good to watch for those with young children.

Now, I won’t attempt to re-hash everything you can and should know or do here (that’s what the above references are for) but I will touch upon a few topics that I feel are important.

Fire Safety

I’ve talked about general fire safety in a variety of ways before so I won’t attempt to discuss everything you could know. Suffice it to say that so long as you’re following good fire safety practices, have appropriate smoke detectors in correct locations, change batteries regularly, and even include fire extinguishers in your plan, then there really isn’t much else that the average person can do in the average suburban home to prevent house fires. That said, because things happen then it’s incumbent upon you to teach your children what they can and should do in the event of a house fire.

That’s where a fire escape plan comes into play. You can search for them online but the basic idea is to diagram the child’s room (have them do it) along with doors and windows and then let them draw how they will escape. I prefer to take it a bit further. Instead of drawing the plan, walk the kids around the house–go room to room–and have THEM tell you how they will get out of each room. I know when we did this my kids got a bit silly about their “escape” plans but when we got serious they understood. We asked questions like “what happens if the fire is between you and the door” or “what will you do if the fire is between you and the window?” Put them in different spots in the room and ask them what they will do.

Also educate them as to how they should escape a room such as to get down low because the smoke is more dangerous than the fire in many cases. Teach them what the smoke alarm sounds like and what it should mean to them. Heck, why not test it late one weekend night to see if they’ll even get out of bed? You might be surprised at how long it takes your kids to wake up… if they even will! What then? Teach them that if there’s a fire they should get out of the house no matter what and where they should wait for you, such as your mailbox or the neighbor’s house.

Then repeat every so often until they’re ready to teach you. 🙂

I should also mention that children playing with matches and lighters are a significant risk as well. I was a prime example. My grandparents smoked cigarettes and when I was young I got hold of one of their lighters and lit the underside of a bed on fire and caused very significant damage to the entire room… let this be a lesson to you: keep your matches and lighters away from curious kids!

Poison Safety

This is an area of home safety that should be fairly easy to prevent with a little foresight. I still remember a time (probably nine years ago now) where I was in the regular habit of cleaning my drains with Drano and my dog was in the habit of jumping into the bathtub to lap water. As you can imagine, we heard a big yelp, my dog had chemical burns on his tongue, I stopped cleaning my drains regularly, and my dog hasn’t jumped into a bathtub since then.

Anyway, that experience opened my eyes to how dangerous such chemicals can be and ever since then I’ve taken to locking up an assortment of dangerous chemicals that could cause my kids harm in an old metal filing cabinet. Granted, I don’t lock up everything like gasoline cans and now that my kids are older they’re more able to understand not to mess with that kind of stuff. But, when they were younger they just didn’t understand.

Now, what if you can’t lock things up? Well, you can put such chemicals up high where they simply cannot reach them. Child locks are another descent option. If you put all of your dangerous chemicals in one central cabinet and then “lock” that cabinet then at least you’ve minimized their ability to access them.

While I’m thinking about it, you should know some common household poisons that you might not have realized are potential poisons to children. Apparently most poisonings involve medicines–that’s why it’s critical you never call medicine “candy”–an assortment of household products as listed in the link, and cosmetics… yes, ladies, your makeup. So, be sure to keep these seeming harmless things (medicines and cosmetics) well away from curious hands.

Water Safety

For some reason water safety has always bothered me. Certainly most concerns regarding water safety are for the youngest children, usually revolving around burns from scalding water and the possibility for drowning in even an inch or two of water. As such, it’s imperative that young children are NEVER left alone in a bathtub, even to go get a towel from the closet.

With regards to scalds, you just need to turn down your water heater temperature. Yes, I know, the shower won’t get as hot and your wife may complain but it’s in your child’s best interests so go do it anyway… and then test to be sure.

There are plenty of other water-related drowning concerns, from Jacuzzi spas to swimming pools, kiddie pools, and even toilets… yes, toilets. Start to look around your house and think about what little hands and little feet MIGHT possible get into and then take steps necessary to help prevent problems. This could include anything from swimming pool gates to Jacuzzi tub tops to toilet seat latches. And, of course, remember to utilize them at all times because it only takes one time for something bad to happen.

Other Concerns

There are, no doubt, a variety of other equally valid concerns, including falls, choking on small items (e.g., tiny batteries, small toys, some foods, etc), suffocation hazards (e.g., plastic wrappers, window blind cords, etc), and anything else you can imagine… reference the aforementioned links for more info.

Obviously, there are so many things to be concerned with and 99.9% of the time kids can have a “brush with death” and come out just fine. Remember, this is all about the 0.01% that we’re trying to prevent.

If you have your own suggestions feel free to share them below…