Important Tips to Keep Children Safe

The time has come. You have decided that your child is old enough to venture out in the world without you. Perhaps your child is boarding a school bus or maybe walking a few doors down to a friend’s home for the first time alone. Whatever the case, you are not going to be there. Find some helpful information and tips that you can use to help your child evaluate and respond appropriately to potential harmful situations. 

Safety Walk – Take a walk through your neighborhood with your child and point out which areas are safe and which may be dangerous. Show them where to go if they ever need help. Help your child learn the proper route so they can get to their destination as quickly (and safely) as possible. 

The Buddy System – Encourage children to do things together, from walking to and from the bus stop to playing outdoors. 

Stay In Touch - Instruct your children to let you know who they are with and how they can be reached. Tell them to call you if any plans change. 

Trust Their Instincts – Discuss what to do if your children sense danger. Make a game plan of how to react in certain situations. Suggest “what if” circumstances and talk about how to take action. 

Fight Back - Tell kids what to do if someone tries to grab them. They should yell, kick and scream, “Help! Leave me alone! I don’t know this person.” 

Limit Name Visibility - Don’t put your children’s names on anything such as a t-shirt, lunch box, school bag or anything else that may be visible and that would let a stranger call them by their name. Children may think that a stranger knows them if they hear their name called out. 

Don’t talk to Strangers – It may sound silly, and everyone has heard this before, however it is important to really make sure that children do not talk to strangers. 

Safety at Home –Kids should always keep the doors locked when home alone and should never answer the door unless they know who’s outside. Make sure that children know that they shouldn’t let phone callers know they are alone either. Talk about how to respond to people at the door or on the phone. 

Speed Dial Important Numbers – Most people have cell phones, even children now. It is important to program important numbers into the phone that they child will have easy access to in case of an emergency. 

Call Collect – While pay phones are hard to come by these days, it is still good to teach children how to call from a pay phone without money. They can call by pushing “0” and telling the operator they want to make a collect call.