Home safety
Teach your child to keep safe
Following the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, parents have become more aware of the safety of their toddlers and young children outside the home. Caroline Pearce reveals practical tips to keep your child safe
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Teach your child his or her name, address and phone number. Help them to memorise such particulars by making learning a fun activity and using a song, for example, a nursery rhyme melody, to help recall details.
Tell your children who to approach if they become separated from you while out shopping, in the park or on holiday. This could be a police officer in uniform, or someone working behind the counter in a shop.
- When taking your child to crowded or unfamiliar places, consider using a harness or a stretchy wrist strap, which will allow movement while keeping the child safely attached to you.
- Teach children to give names to negative feelings such as discomfort or fear. They need to learn that it is important to say “no” if someone tries to treat them in a way that makes them experience such feelings, for example, by touching them in an inappropriate manner.
- Try role-playing with your children, acting out situations that could occur and helping them to find ways to behave if they feel uncomfortable. Teach them to be assertive and shout out an alert to others who may be able to help them if, for example, approached by a stranger encouraging them to get into a car. “Stop”; “You’re not my mummy/daddy”; or “Get away from me!” can be extremely effective.
- Children should be made aware of the importance of checking with a parent or trusted adult before accepting anything, such as sweets, from anyone, even someone they know.
- Let your children know that whereas they should be aware of potential dangers, not all strangers are bad. For example, uniformed stewards at a football match are trained to help if a child gets separated from their accompanying adult.
Useful websites
Further useful information for general safety inside and outside the home can be found at the following websites:
www.babycentre.co.uk/baby/safety/childsafetydirectory
www.firekills.gov.uk/kids/01.htm
www.berr.gov.uk/fireworks/public.htm
www.gloucestershire.police.uk/kids_aware/3.html
www.juniorcitizen.org.uk/kids/index.php
