Children and Gun Safety

Are you a gun owner with children in the house? Do you have your firearm safely secured away from your children? According to reports, some 900 children are seen at hospitals for accidents pertaining to guns. These accidents could be prevented with just a few simple steps.

About one in three families with kids keep at least one gun at home in the United States. Safe Kids says that’s nearly 22 million children exposed to handguns, rifles and shotguns.

What’s even more alarming is that experts say kids as young as 3-years-old are strong enough to pull the trigger of many handguns.

A federal law, called the Child Safety Lock Act of 2005" requires every handgun to have a storage or safety device sold with it. But it’s up to gun owners to enforce safety rules at home.

 

Child Bath Safety

GreatDad.com has some great child safety tips for giving your small child a bath, which is something that many parents worry about. The full list can be found on their site, but here are some of the most important tips:

-Protect your child from falling or hurting themselves on faucets and spouts by placing a towel over the sharp object.  We like the Boon Flo faucet cover for this purpose.

-Always check the temperature of the water before you bathe your child in it. It should never exceed 120 F. Very hot water can scald your baby while extremely cold water can lead to serious illnesses.

-Never leave the child alone, not even for a minute. Every year, several cases of infants drowning are reported even in very little water.

 

Child Themed iPhone Applications

Are you a parent who uses an iPhone or an iPod Touch? ParentDish.com has some very handy information about the best baby and child applications for your devices such as baby monitors, food additive lists so you can look up food safety, and even a diaper monitor to keep track of your child’s health. Have a look through their great, comprehensive list of child friendly applications for your device.

Halloween Safety

While researching child safety tips for Halloween, these educational films from 1977 were found. These videos may be a little dated in quality, but the tips and information are timeless.

Child Safety For BPA

The debate over the safety of bisphenol-A, or BPA, rages on with very conflicting evidence. Is it safe for your child? Is it not safe? And what plastic numbers ARE safe for children? Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine in the toxicology program have the following advice for parents who are conflicted on the issue:

Scientists from the toxicology offer this advice:

-Watch for the numeral 7 on the bottom of plastic containers. That often means they contain BPA.

-Don’t microwave plastic food containers made with BPA. Better to use glass or porcelain.

-Watch out for canned foods for children.

-Search for baby bottles and other baby products that are BPA-free.

Some states are considering bills to restrict the use of BPA for the young, and Congress is assessing several possible remedies including a BPA ban in children’s products or a ban on BPA in packaging that touches food. The best effort, however, would be the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act. It would require that children’s products are proved safe before they are sold, not — as with BPA — the other way around.

 

Children’s Hurricane Safety Tips

Hurricane season has arrived, and with that comes many apprehensive months for adults as they worry about protecting their home and family should the worst happen. Many times we forget that children aren’t immune from the tense situations that arise from natural disasters such as hurricanes, and open lines of communication need to be established to alleviate their anxiety. The Houston Chronicle ran an article today (as Hurricane Ike races in their direction) regarding how to help children through such a difficult time.

"The really hard part is talking about destruction that happens someplace else. It’s important that parents know what their children are watching, that they talk to children about what they are seeing, that parents know whether a set of images is particularly frightening or distressing for children and then act to limit those images," said Dr. John Sargent, a Houston child psychiatrist and Baylor School of Medicine psychiatry professor.

"The important thing to remember is that children vary in how they understand things at different ages and children have very different perceptions of time at different ages and also vary individually to the degree to which they get frightened or not," he said.

Included in the article is a great checklist of tips for parents regarding how to handle issues that come up in the wake of a natural disaster.

 

Toy Safety

New laws on the books to further regulate consumer protections in regards to children’s toys and other items for your child go a long way to helping you keep them safe. But is it enough? With all of the child safety worries out there these days, US News and World Report has put together a list of five ways to keep your kids safe at home.

1. Don’t buy toys with rare Earth magnets.
2. Shun metal jewelry  for kids.
3. Be suspicious of brightly painted wooden and plastic toys.
4. Avoid plastic toys if phthalates scare you.
5. Check recall notices

Check out their article for further information on these five issues.

Child Abduction Response Team

Some interesting news from Orlando regarding the forming of what is being called the Child Abduction Response Team, or CART for short:

It was images in 2004 of Carlie Brucia, 11, being abducted from a Sarasota car wash and news of her murder that finally had an agent with the Florida Department of Enforcement saying enough is enough, Forbes reported.

The agent formed a new kind of task force to deal with missing and kidnapped children called the Child Abduction Response Team or CART.

The force is made up of dozens of specialists whose only job is to find missing children.

"Forty-four percent of the children that are abducted by a predator are killed within approximately one hour," Palm Bay police Maj. John Blackledge said

Blackledge is part of Brevard County’s CART unit.

"In many cases of a missing child where there is malicious intent and where they’ve been abducted by a predator, it is highly likely we will find that child either alive or dead within one or two miles from the original point that they have been abducted from," Blackledge said.

Statistics also show that 74 percent of children were killed with in three hours of their disappearance, 91 percent were killed within 24 hours and 99 percent were killed within seven days, Forbes reported.

The CART team was successful in the discovery of a Winter Garden girl who was abducted in 2004, Forbes reported. Her abductor, Brent Mackinder was arrested and convicted.

In 15 of 19 times the CART team has been activated, they have been successful in finding a child they said would have been killed otherwise.

"Minutes make a difference," Blackledge said. "Minutes may save a life."

 

Retail BPA Ban

Much has been made recently about the use of the plastic chemical bisphenol-A (also known as BPA) in a myriad of different products, especially baby bottles. In the wake of research claiming that BPA isn’t safe, Wal-Mart, CVS, and Toys ‘R Us have decided to pull all baby bottles made with BPA off of their shelves. Animal studies show that small doses of BPA have been linked to cancer and other health problems, so why hasn’t something been done sooner?

BPA is everywhere, used to make polycarbonate, a rigid, clear plastic for bottles, bike helmets, DVDs and car headlights. It’s also an ingredient in epoxy resins, which coat the inside of food and drink cans. About 93% of Americans tested by the Centers for Disease Control had the chemical in their urine.

If opponents drive BPA out of the food supply, consumers will pay. Some BPA-free plastic bottles sell for $10 each, more than twice the price of bottles with BPA. Baby bottles made of glass can break, potentially causing injury. Replacing BPA in the lining of cans would mean retooling all that packaging, and it’s not clear that there are safe alternatives.

 

Alarming Drowning Statistics

The Dallas Morning News reports on the alarming statistic that drowning is the second leading cause of death that is injury related in children ages 1 to 14. Just why is the statistic so high?

Pools are more accessible to children. Parents have a false sense of security about their ability to keep track of youngsters. And they are under the mistaken impression that children splash and scream when they are struggling, when actually they slip under the water noiselessly, experts said.

“In home pools, people get really comfortable with their surroundings, and so you kind of let your guard down a little bit,” said Claudia Romo, a health educator at Children’s Medical Center.

The Children’s Medical Center in Dallas has partnered with the YMCA and the American Red Cross to teach parents about the safety issues surrounding their children and water accidents known as the “Know Before You Go” program. If you live in the area, check with any of those organizations to inquire about participating.