Top 5 Ways To Promoting Safety at Home for Kids

We’ve all been there. We thought our parents were strict and overly protective until we had to raise our own kiddos ourselves. Household materials are usually built to be pretty safe for any average reasonable adult person. But, our homes can ultimately pose lots of potential hazards for our kids. 

How then do we promote home safety for young kids? The key lies in finding safety hazards and then devising safety precautions around these hazards to eliminate or reduce risks.

We listed the top causes of injuries at home for kids. Read on to know the top 5 child safety at home tips to ensure that our children are safe at our home.

Preventing Falls

In a study by various American independent think tanks, slips and falls are the most common injuries in all age groups. 

We can prevent slips and falls by observing the behavior and current actions of our kids at home:

• If your child starts to become more active at crawling, install safety guards across your stairs and balconies. Supervising young children on stairs and balconies is also required.
• If your kids love to run around the house, check your carpets and prevent them from sliding. Carpet, rug, and stair treads sliding is also one of the leading causes of slips and falls at home. To secure your mats and prevent them from sliding, it is recommended to install a double-sided carpet tape.

Carpet tapes prevent rugs and carpets from sliding by securing them firmly on floors and stairs. Installing a carpet tape improves the level of safety around the home for kids. However, they should be residue-free and wood-safe.

Make sure to choose a carpet tape that is residue-free and wood-safe. You would not want to end up with a sticky residue on the floor or with a damaged/discolored wooden floor. Also, make sure that the adhesive is silicone to ensure that it is compatible with various set-ups.

It should be compatible with rug-to-carpet, carpet-to-floor, or stair treads-to-stairs applications. For more adhesive products for beauty, DIY, and home improvement, visit our Amazon store here.

Preventing Burns and Scalds

As kids discover the world around them, they tend to be interested and curious about the things around them. It is not uncommon for most children to reach over towards a pot or a stove, thinking how hot is hot. This is how children’s minds are wired- to be inquisitive and curious.

As such, it is vital to take note of the following:

• Whenever cooking, maintain close supervision to your child. You can allow them to go near if they are curious as to which dishes you are cooking. But it is equally important to also lookout, especially at their hands.
• Keep out your hot beverages, such as a newly brewed coffee away from the reach of children.
• Set a safety limit to the maximum temperature that comes out of your bathroom. If possible, it is essential not to let the maximum temperature exceed 50 degrees Celsius.
• Supervise children around campfires, barbecue grills, or even standard heating tools at home, such as heaters.
• Keep children away from exhaust pipes, motorbike or automobile pipes, or just-turned-off lawnmowers as these are extremely hot.
• Keep heat emitting tools away from children’s reach.
• Check the temperature of playground equipment, especially during hot weather. A hot playground slide on a summer day is a scalding-hazard for children.
• Call your emergency hotline right away if your child has a burn on the face, neck, or genitals. These are critical areas on a child’s anatomy; hence, they are a cause of more concern if burnt or scalded.
• To improve general fire safety conditions, install fire alarms and smoke alarms which constantly detect carbon monoxide around the house.

Accidental Ingestion of Poisonous Substances

Based on data, poisoning is the leading cause of injury for children under five.

So, you may ask yourself, how do I keep my child safe at home from potentially poisonous substances? 

• Identify which chemicals have labels that say they are potentially dangerous and poisonous.
• Put medicines and other potentially harmful substances away from the reach of children, if possible, with a safety lock mechanism.
• Never provide anything, including vitamin tablets (especially chewable Vitamin C gummy candies) in excess.
• Immediately call your emergency hotline or poison control agency if you suspect that your child has ingested anything harmful.

Strangulation and Suffocation

Despite baby-proofing everything at home, objects which can cause strangulation and suffocation may still exist at home. Worse, they can be in the form of typical household materials.

• Do not put stuffed toys and cushions on baby cots and prams.
• To prevent accidents, wrap the hanging window blind cords in cleats at least 2 meters away from the floor.
• Never allow knots, bracelets, necklaces, and even garlands within the vicinity of your children. Keep these possible hazards away.

Water and Electrical Safety

When it comes to water and electrical safety, there is no going around it other than close supervision. A lot of cases in the past where children drowned, could have been prevented. To promote safety at home for kids, especially when it comes to electrical and water safety, follow the following safety tips:

• Install safety fences and self-locking pool gates around the pool.
• Whenever giving a bath to children, especially those under the age of 6, always keep close supervision. Do not leave guidance to their older siblings.
• For electrical safety, hire a professional and licensed electrician to do the repairs around the house.
• To prevent electric shocks, keep away objects which can be used to poke electrical outlets away from the reach of children.
• Always maintain close supervision to infants around the house.

Conclusion

More than anything, constant evaluation and supervision is the core principle to follow to promote child safety at home. Whenever possible, we should be hands-on in caring for our children.

Do you have other crucial tips that can be added to this top 5 list? Let’s discuss more in the comments section!