Personal Safety For Kids

Most parents worry about the safety of their children when they step out of their homes – some even tend to overreact and try to restrict the lifestyle of their children. However, children do need to be independent so that they can have confidence in their own abilities. To help ensure your children’s personal safety, make sure you maintain an open relationship with your kids, that you have trust in them and their judgments, and that you teach them certain basic safety rules.

Some of the basic safety rules that children need to be aware of are as follows-

• Wherever your children are going, ask them to let you know what place they will be at, how long they expect to be there, when they will be returning and how to catch hold of them in case of an emergency. Your younger children may not mind revealing all this information; your teenager might not be so cooperative. Convince them that it is necessary to have all this information for their own good.
• Explain to your children that if they are not back by the time they have specified, you will begin worrying. Try to outline to them the path they should take while coming home so that you can follow the same path when you go out looking for them. Make sure you have the numbers and addresses of all your kid’s close friends.
• Instruct your child, especially your teenager that they will not be traveling home alone if it is too late. Agree to pick them up wherever they are. If it is not possible for you or another adult to pick them up, and they have to travel alone in a taxi, perhaps they can call you or another adult to leave the name of the cab company and the number of the cab.
• Encourage your children to bring friends home – it is better they are at home safe (though noisy) than hanging around in unsafe areas.
• If you have younger children, you need to have more firm arrangements for them to be dropped at and picked up from school. If for some reason, you or your partner are unable to pick up your child in time from school, instruct your child that he or she should go right back into school. Remind them time and time again that they are not to go with any other people – even if your children know them. The bottom line is – your children do not go anywhere or with anyone unless they speak to you about it first.
• Leave a small card with your younger children mentioning details like the full name of the child, home address and contact numbers of one or two adults.
• If you are going to step out with your child, especially for a trip to a place with crowds like shopping malls and so on, make sure you train them as to what to do if they get lost. Tell them to look for a police officer, an employee in a shop or a lady with kids.