Seven-step summer safety checklist

Summer isn’t just the season for catching bugs, running through the sprinkler, and licking ice cream cones. It’s also the season when children are most likely to be injured. The good news is that the majority of these injuries are preventable. Ann Douglas, author of The Mother of All Baby Books, The Mother of All Toddler Books, and The Mother of All Parenting Books, offers this seven step plan for avoiding the top summer hazards for young children.

1.Don’t overestimate your child’s road safety skills. Your eight year old may seem to be road-smart, but he’s probably not ready to ride his bike or rollerblade on the street just yet. Studies have shown that most children aren’t able to make safe judgments about traffic situations until they’re nine years of age or older. This is because they can’t see out of the corners of their eyes as well as adults can, they are less able to pinpoint the direction that a sound is coming from, they have trouble judging how quickly a vehicle is traveling towards them or how far away it is, and they are easily distracted. That’s why it’s important for you to carefully supervise your kids when they’re riding their bikes on or near the road and to be careful not to overestimate their road safety skills.

2.Make sure that your backyard playground is safe. Carefully check your backyard playground equipment, looking for sharp edges, broken parts, animal feces, puddles of water that could pose a drowning hazard, debris, and other hazards that could result in injury. Supervising outdoor play closely (e.g. standing right beside your child as opposed to supervising from a nearby park bench) and you should make a point of teaching your children the principles of safe play (e.g. not tying skipping ropes to the playground equipment, due to the risk of strangulation).

3.Take steps to prevent a drowning tragedy. Drowning is one of the leading causes of death for children between the ages of one and four, second only to motor vehicle accidents. Children can drown in less than 1 1/2 inches of water—just enough water to cover the nose and mouth—and the majority of drowning tragedies occur when an adult’s attention is momentarily distracted (e.g. someone runs in the house for a moment to answer the phone). Many accidental drownings can be prevented by turning wading pools upside down when they are not in use, by ensuring that fences around full-sized swimming pools meet municipal standards and that they are designed in such a way that they cannot be climbed by young children, and by ensuring that children are properly supervised whenever they’re playing in or near water.

4.Help your child to avoid sports injuries. Ensure that your child wears the appropriate protective gear and teach your child the importance of warming up and stretching before each practice. You may also want to consider having your child play sports year round. Children who play one sport a year are more likely to experience strains and other related injuries.

5.Teach your child how to avoid dog bites. Teach your child to stand still if he is approached or chased by a strange dog. Make sure that he understands the importance of not running, kicking, or making threatening gestures toward the dog, no matter how frightened he may feel. Instead, he should face the dog and back away slowly until he’s out of the dog’s reach.