In honor of Child Safety Week, MotherProof.com is hosting some great how-to videos on how to properly instal child safety seats in your car. Topics covered include questions about car seats forwards or backwards, safest place for a car seat, and top 3 mistakes made by parents in car seat installations. Check them all out over at MotherProof.com.
A great child safety resource for parents just won an award for it’s years of dedication to the cause. The Safe Kids Buckle Up campaign won a Peter K O’Rourke Special Achievement Award from the Governors Highway Safety Association for all of their work in becoming the largest child passenger safety program in the country. SafeKids.org is a great resource for parents to read about child safety regarding auto, fire, toy, and water safety. About SafeKids.org:
Safe Kids USA is a member of Safe Kids Wolrdwide, a global network of organizations whose mission is to prevent accidental childhood injury, a leading killer of children 14 and under.
More than 450 coalitions in 16 countries bring together health and safety experts, educators, corporations, foundations, governments and volunteers to educate and protect families.
It is the unthinkable. Not being able to see your child when you are backing out of the driveway and striking them. But it does happen, and is something that needs to be taken very seriously.
The incident underscores the importance of parents knowing where their children are at all times, according to child-safety experts who work to minimize instances in which children are injured or killed after darting into traffic, are run over or are left in hot cars.
Young children often go out the door, without their parents knowing, to see where their parents have gone. It is known as the "bye-bye syndrome," said Janette Fennell, founder and president of Kids and Cars.
Labor Day weekend is upon us. which signals the end of summer, but still allows us a nice three day weekend to enjoy. With every other major summer holiday, child safety is something that we shouldn’t forget in all of the fun and revelry that surrounds three day summer weekends. KRGV in Texas reminds us of the usual summer safety tips regarding children:
With the Labor Day weekend approaching, the Department of Family and Protective Services urges all Texans to guard against two of the biggest causes of death for infants and toddlers during hot weather: accidental drowning and hot car deaths.
Already 72 children have drowned in Texas this year, more than any other year since DFPS began its unofficial count in 2005. Also, there have been six hot car deaths in Texas so far this year.
"Each of these tragedies could have been prevented, simply by not leaving children alone, near water or in vehicles," said Sue Milam, Deputy Commissioner for DFPS. "Children should never be left unsupervised for any period of time, near water or in any vehicle because the results can be devastating. If you can’t see them, you can’t save them!"
In hot weather, a closed vehicle can reach lethal temperatures in just a few minutes. Most children who perish in overheated vehicles are in the back seat, buckled in child safety seats.
"Always look before you leave a vehicle," Milam said. "When a child is in the back seat, it is a good idea to put a purse or briefcase there, too. Or keep a stuffed animal in the car seat, and when the child is there put the stuffed animal in the front seat. Those are both good reminders."
Texas is one of only 14 states which make it illegal to leave a child unattended in a vehicle. In Texas, it is against the law if a person leaves a child younger than seven years of age in a vehicle longer than five minutes.
For more information about water safety for children, and the dangers of hot cars for children, see seeandsave.org.
When your child becomes of age to get behind the wheel of a car, it is a scary time for any parent. There are so many issues to discuss…the dangers of drinking and driving, paying 100% attention to the road and not the other distractions we all have in the car, learning the rules of the road, etc. Car insurance company Allstate has come up with some fun web tools to help you begin a dialog with your child about safe automobile operation. They even include a cool "parent - teen driving contract" to point out big issues that plague teen drivers. With over 6,000 teen car accident fatalities a year, it is a conversation you can’t afford to skip.
First time parents have many confusing things to worry about when they bring their child home for the first time, including the right car seat alignment for their child. The Evansville Courier Press lays out an excellent time table to decide when you should graduate your child from one car seat to another, even when to change the particular car seat position.
The first car seat your child will need is a rear-facing infant seat. Babies should continue to ride facing the rear until they are at least 20 pounds and 1 year old.
Because of differences in neck bone rigidity and ligament strength, infants facing forward are more likely to suffer a spinal cord injury in a crash, so it is advisable to keep your child facing the rear as long as possible, even if your child reaches the 20-pound mark before his first birthday.
There are other steps covered in the handy guide, from when your child can graduate to a booster seat to getting rid of the seat altogether. Seeing that the leading cause of death among children is car accident, following proper car seat “rules” for your child is of utmost importance.