Tips for the New Year

Safety tips for the New Year

The start of the new year and, as seen in Wishes for baby-a Film by Fisher-Price, the start of a new life. Remember and honor the past, look to the future, but live in the moment. Begin the new year by practicing the tips below to keep you and your family safe at home, in and around pools and water, while riding bicycles, walking and skating, traveling by car, and even parenting. Pro Consumer Safety wishes you and your family a Happy, Safe, and Healthy New Year!

Parenting Tips

Validate your child: When you validate your child, you allow them to express how they feel. Parenting is not about control or power, it is about the parent listening, guiding, and allowing the child to learn from within, by allowing and respecting the child's feelings, needs, abilities, and experiences. Without it, children are at significant risk of becoming victimized in relationships, becoming codependent, having a loss of desire and understanding of how to satisfy their own needs and spending a lifetime of searching for their own identity in adulthood.

Allow your child to play: Allow them time on their own and with other children (with supervision of course but not control). Playing and experiencing from games to activities from crafts, drawing, coloring, sports, etc. helps make new brain connections that are shown to help improve learning ability throughout childhood and even reduce risk taking behavior during adolescence. The activity of "play" begins with toddler ages in preschool, kindergarten and elementary school. However as the child grows, in middle and high school the term "play", while similar, is term is identified through specific activities such as sports, music, girl scouts, boy scouts, dance, sleep-overs/slumber parties, skiing, ice skating, etc. Not any different from in adulthood. These all help improve learning, from emotional, intellectual to social.
Respect your child: Talk with them, not to them. Ask them do not tell them. When you ask them to do something say "please". You will be surprised how fast they catch on. How you behave to them is how they will behave in their relationships at school and to you as a caregiver.
Let your child define them self: Never define your child. If there is one thing you never want to do is define them. Remember they will be the one going to a job or career every day. You want them to be happy and successful. When children are defined, they are at greater risk of codependency and learning to please others while not knowing how to please them self. As a result many adults go through life in unwanted jobs and careers they do not enjoy and trying to figure out how to get happiness in their life. Allow your child to say "I want to be....." then validate them. Make sure it is their choice, not yours. As they feel choices they will explore new ventures and learn new activities. Remember let them "define", choose, explore, then you validate by saying supportive things to them.
Relationships: Keep relationships that you would like your child to be in. What you expose them to is what is being modeled by example to them, if what they will seek. If you do not feel comfortable in expressing your feelings, you are not getting your needs met in your relationship, or the relationship is only one-way, this is damaging for the child. For those dating a single parent, once you have been in the child's life and bonded overtime (especially 5-10 years or more), take the responsibility of being there for the child, since you have become part of their life (see "I Broke Up With My Boyfriend, Not His Kids"). Remember when all adults in a child's life put the child first and models healthy behaviors, that child will succeed in many ways.
Model the behavior you would like in your child: If you desire your child to have interests, improve brain development to do better in school and go to college to have a career, in addition to validating and allowing the child to play and experience, do activities with the child, show them how to experience and enjoy life. Limit screen (TV) time, drinking, smoking, addictive behaviors and get involved in activities with them.

Home Safety

Anchor furniture and televisions to the wall to prevent from tipping over
Remove guns from your home or keep locked in a gun safe with trigger locks
Install a Carbon Monoxide detector in your home. Call your local Fire Department for information-NEVER bring a BBQ indoors and NEVER use an oven to warm your home
If you take prescription medication, BEFORE buying over-the-counter medication-check with a pharmacist
Use protective devices on bathroom door, cabinets, toilet seat locks, electric outlet covers
Install stair gates at top and bottom
Install window and balcony safety guards
Keep items with lithium batteries out of reach of infants & toddlers (car key remotes, remote controls, electronic books, greeting cards, candles)
Keep all medications and cleaning products locked up or out of reach of young children
Remove poisonous plants from home
Poison questions, concerns call 1-800-222-1222

Pool Safety

Visiting a home with a pool? Remember most toddlers who have drowned in pools were not expected to have been in the pool area but elsewhere in the home, asleep or playing. Make sure the pool has the following layers of protection to keep your child safe.
If you own a pool-when the pool is not-in-use:

Have a perimeter fence that completely surrounds it with a self-closing, self-latching gate, and keep it locked
Keep inflatable items and toys out of the pool and pool area

If you own a pool-when the pool is in-use:

Designate an adult who knows CPR and swims to “watch” the children. This means watching actively, not reading, sleeping, eating, talking to others, etc. Use the Water Watcher Tag.
Make sure children 5-years of age and older know how to swim
Have lifesaving equipment at the pool and know how to use it

Car Safety

Drive-Don’t text!
Always wear a seat belt when riding in a vehicle
Keep children safety buckled in the back seat until they learn to drive. Have a Certified Technician come to you to make sure you have the correct car seat for your child and teach you how to install is properly.
Expecting a baby or planning a baby shower? Before you purchase a car seat, get advice from a Certified Technician on your seat options and make sure the seat fits in the vehicle.
Always have children properly fastened in an appropriate child safety seat or booster seat in the back seat when riding in a vehicle
Remember take your baby out of the car first. Never leave a child alone in a vehicle-It’s The Law!
Going out on the town, happy hour or have college-aged children, remember if one drinks, do not drive. If they drive, do not drink. Designate a driver or call for a ride.

Bicycle Safety

Wear a helmet flat on your head, fastened snugly when you ride a bicycle, scooter, roller blades/skates-It’s The Law!
When riding a bicycle follow the “rules of the road”
Obey pedestrian signals and always cross a street at an intersection or crosswalk