In the Good Old Summertime: Keeping Your Child Safe in (and Around) the Pool

I would like to say that the news story out of Georgia this weekend, where to five year old girls drowned in a pool as their caregiver was talking on the phone, is out of the ordinary but it is much more common place than we would like to think. No matter where the pool is located there are some simple (and a few not so simple) steps that you can take to keep your children safe.

It is important to remember that although most drowning occur in residential swimming pools, a child can drown in as little as an inch of water.  This may include a toilets, wading or inflatable baby pools, bath tubs, ice chests, fountains, ponds or buckets for younger children because once they fall over into them they do not have the upper body strength to pull themselves out.  Most drowning involving infants under the age of one occur in the bathtub.   Older children may not be at risk of drowning in these situations, but open water such as rivers, lakes and oceans do pose a drowning threat for them as well.  Therefore, it is important to be observant of what your child is doing when they are around water even if they are not swimming.

The American Academy of Pediatrics advises parents to take the following preventive steps to protect their children from drowning:

• Never leave your child unsupervised near water at or in the home, or around any body of water, including a swimming pool.
• Learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and infant and child first-aid.
• Do not rely on personal flotation devices (PFDs) or swimming lessons to protect your child.  Note that water wings, rafts and toys were not made to prevent drowning.
• Install childproof fencing around swimming pools.  Consider locking all doors that access pool.  Make sure that those locks are out of your children’s reach.  Small hands can be quite resourceful when they are on a mission.
• Make sure you have rescue equipment or an approved floatation device, a telephone, and emergency phone numbers near the swimming pool at all times.
• Insist that your child wear a U.S. Coast Guard-approved personal flotation device on boats at all times.  The best way to get older children to wear them is to wear them yourself.  Think safety first, fashion second.
• Do not allow children to dive in waters less than 9 feet deep.  Many children sustain permanent neck injuries diving into water that is too shallow.  Check the depth of the lake or pool prior to allowing diving.
• Take any pool cover completely off before allowing your child to swim.  This is one that I have personally been guilty of.
•  Young children should not use hot tubs as they can easily get overheated.

Safety 101: Toddler Safety in the Kitchen

+Keep matches and lighters out of the reach of little hands
+Place safety latches or locks on all cabinets, drawers and doors that contain cleaning products, medicines, glass, knives, scissors and small objects (leave the pots and pans cabinet open every once in a while because of the fun time that your child will experience pounding on them)
+Remove small magnets from the refrigerator because small items can get lodged in a toddler's throat (find another way for them to learn their letters)
+Use the back burners on stove whenever possible and always turn pot handles towards the back of the stove
+Keep electric cords out of reach and cover all outlets within their reach with safety covers
+Keep hot drinks away from the edge of table, or on a tablecloth that a child may pull down on
+Don't pass hot drinks over your child's head
 +Dispose of or secure all plastic bags immediately because they can cause suffocation
+Use a safety gate to block child's access to kitchen when no one is around


Toddler safety does not mean overprotection.  Toddlers are going to get lots of bumps and bruises as they are learning to manuever and explore their world.  Don't beat yourself up when they get hurt, learn from it if you need to and then go on.

Safety 101: Bike or Any Wheeled Vehicle Safety

Whether your child can be found riding a bike, skateboarding, motorcycle riding, or snowboarding the best way to keep them safe is to encourage them to wear a helmet.  Sometimes (or more like often) getting them to actually wear a helmet isn't as easy as buying one for them.  One of the tricks that we used when our children were young was to get them involved in buying the helmet ensuring that it was one that they would like to wear.  We also let them decorate their helmet with stickers.  In addition, we wore and still wear helmets as well.  Don't underestimate the power of you modeling this behavior.   If they start wearing a helmet when they are younger, they are more likely to wear it when they are older.  They will have developed a habit. 

If your children are older and they have not been wearing a helmet, start encouraging them today to wear one.  Talk to them about how many of their heroes wear helmets.  Professional skateboarders, bikers and motorcycle riders would not be caught dead without their helmet.  If they don't buy into helmets after this discussion, you may need to take a more direct approach.  Show them some pictures of accidents involving people who were not wearing their helmet.  If this doesn't provide the desired effect, you may need to take their equipment away from them for a time to let them know how important wearing a helmet is.  It may be the difference between life or death.  It may be the difference between walking away from an accident with a few bumps and bruises or experiencing brain damage.

A Need to Teach Your Children to Stay Safe in the Event of...

In today's society, I think that each of us needs to teach our children how to stay safe in the event of a home break in, school shooting, abduction, etc.  Sadly the world that they are growing up in seems to be more dangerous than the world we grew up in.  Some may argue that this is due to better reporting rather than an actually increase, but I think the dangers facing our children are on the increase. 

I will be addressing some of the dangers that your child may be faced with and what to teach them to do in this series on "Keeping Your Child Safe".  I will be giving you practical ideas to practice with your child about what to do when they find themselves in a bad situation.  Some parents may think that this will scare their children, but I like to think of it as preparing children.  If you think this will scare your child, consider the way that you present the information.  Take time to calmly explain to them that it is highly unlikely that this will happen to them but "arming" them with what to do in these events may build their confidence in handle other situations in their lives as well as provide some quality time for you and your child.

Is It Safe for Your Child to Have an Adult Mentor?

Is it safe for your child to have an adult mentor or is it too risky given the influence that mentors can develop with your child?  I believe in most cases that having a mentor provides some much needed positive adult influence.  In today's society, there are many families where one parent is missing from the household for long periods of time.  Whether this is due to a divorce, a traveling parent or military service is unimportant.  A mentor can fulfill a need that the child has for adult contact.  I think the larger issue facing parents is how to choose the right mentor.

Parents everywhere whose children meet with a mentor must be rethinking their decision given the recent stories of the Penn State coach, the Syracuse coach and the Craigslist killer.  I don't believe that we, as parents, should discount the mentoring program altogether because of a few horrific cases.  I think that we should instead give thought to how we choose these mentors for our children.  Do your homework about a potential mentor.  Anyone who is unwilling to have a backround check may be trying to hide something.  In each of these high profile cases, there was some red flags in their past that would have eliminated them as a possible mentor for my child.  I don't believe this to be an invasion of the possible mentors privacy because more than likely everything that you need to know is out their on the internet for anyone to find.