Road
- Learn to use your child’s car seat the right way. Use this checklist to help.
- Teach your children to ride their bikes on the right-hand side of the road, with traffic, and to use appropriate hand signals.
- Make sure your child has a helmet, and take the helmet safety fit test to check that it fits properly.
- Add lights or reflectors to your child’s bike to be visible to drivers when it’s dark out.
- Add reflectors to your child’s backpack and coats.
- Wearing light- or brightly-colored clothing and reflective gear will make kids more visible to drivers as they walk.
- Walk the route your child takes to school to practice crossing and make sure their path is safe.
- Register all car seats to learn if there are recalls.
- Teach kids to look left, right and left again before crossing the street.
- Then remind them to continue looking until safely across.
- Check to make sure your car seat is still right for your growing child. The label on your car seat will help determine if it is the right seat for your child’s age, weight, height and development.
- Take the pledge to put phones, headphones and devices down when crossing the street.
- Take 5 minutes to do this interactive infographic with your child that shows how to avoid getting hit by a car.
- Talk to your teen about buckling up every ride, every time, every car, every driver.
Play
- Make sure your young athlete has a water bottle to bring to practices and games. For every 20 minutes of play, a young athlete should drink about 10 gulps of water.
- Learn the signs and symptoms of a concussion and encourage athletes to speak up if they get hurt. Review your child’s sports schedule for the year. Make sure they have at least one or two days off each week from any particular sport and a two month break between seasons.
- Learn the location of an AED at your child’s practice location.
- Make sure your child’s coach has all your child’s emergency contact information.
- Check that the playgrounds where your children play have shock-absorbing surfaces. Rubber, synthetic turf, sand, pea gravel, wood chips or mulch are the safest options. Also look for hazards, such as rusted or broken equipment. Alert the school or the local parks and recreation office if a playground is unsafe.
Home
- Set your water heater to 120 degrees Fahrenheit to avoid scalds.
- Make sure you have both a working smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide alarm on every level of your home, and in all sleeping areas. Test the alarms to make sure they work.
- Put all medicine and vitamins up and away and out of sight, even medicine you take every day.
- Create and practice a fire escape plan with your family. It is important to know two ways out of every room.
- A firm mattress and fitted sheet are all you need for your baby’s crib. Remove blankets and toys.
- Learn CPR. It may help you save a child’s life in an emergency.
- Cut food for toddlers into pieces no larger than one half inch. Avoid giving children under 4 foods such as grapes, hot dogs, popcorn or chunks of cheese.
- Keep cords and strings, including those attached to window blinds, out of your child’s reach.
- Teach your kids about swimming safety. Every child is different, so enroll children in swimming lessons when you feel they are ready.
- Secure approved safety gates at the top and bottom of stairs.
- Properly install window guards or stops to help prevent falls from windows.
- Place your baby’s crib and other furniture away from windows and blinds. Your baby is safer without any strings or cords within reach.
- Print a medicine schedule and post on your fridge. Write clear instructions about what medicine to give children, when to give it and how much to give.
- Store all household cleaning products, liquid laundry packets and chemicals in their original container and store up and away, out of children’s reach and sight.
- Learn the Heimlich maneuver so you can respond quickly if your child chokes.
- Keep toilet lids closed and use toilet seat locks if you have little children in the home.
- Mount flat panel TVs to the wall. Be sure to place heavier, box-style TVs on low, stable pieces of furniture.
