As parents, we shouldn’t necessarily wait until something bad happens around us or even to us until we begin to teach our children about issues of safety. Children are the most precious gift that we may ever have and as they are, they often lack the information and skills needed to protect themselves during an emergency and in the case of danger. It is our sole responsibility as parents, teachers, and caregivers to safeguard our children and empower them with the tools needed to avoid or limit their exposure to danger.
Setting security and safety expectations with your children should start at a tender age and should be reinforced through direct communication and lifestyle observations. But how do you teach them to be safe without scaring them? Here is a look at some of the effective ways to inform your children on safety issues and instilling good security habits that will stick with them forever.
- Start early: Your kids may be young but it is important to start teaching basic safety tips as soon as they understand simple language and signs.
- Keep communication open: Always keep the channel of communication direct and open while discussing safety issues with your children. Encourage them to ask questions and contribute to the discussion.
- Set rules and guidelines: When setting basic rules and guidelines, make sure they seem fair, easy to understand and reason. If your child recognizes that the rules are not intended to be mean to him but to keep him from harm’s way, then he will be eager to obey them and even adopt them as his own rules.
- Enforce the consequences: When your child disobeys your safety rules, you need to make him see that unsafe behavior has consequences.
- Write out emergency numbers: Write out you and your spouse home and office numbers, neighbor’s number and important security numbers such as firefighters, police etc nearest to you. Make your child memorize such numbers and placed it in a conspicuous place within the home where he can easily access it.
- Explain safety signs and labels: Warning signs, symbols, and colors should be shown and explain to children to help them identify potential hazards when they come across them. Most hazard symbol is black on a yellow background with a triangle depicted around the symbol.
- Practice emergency situations: Talking and teaching about issues of safety is not enough. Rehearse safety situations and observe how he quickly reacts to it. Use scenarios that allow you to turn the rehearsals into games.