More Mental Health Articles
Keeping Safe In 2009
Happy New Year to everyone! Hopefully your New Years Eve was safe and without incident. It is important to be prepared to avoid becoming a victim. In order to plan for things that can keep your family safe, you need to know what the threats are first.This article will help to empower you with the tools necessary for you to design your personal safety chart with rankings that will better enable you to prepare for emergencies, but with the timeline of what might take place either first or what is most important to address first.
There are many things that can happen everyday like kids falling down and getting hurt, getting lost in the grocery store and or seeing something strange that they should report.Do you have a plan for that?If a child falls and hurts themselves, do they know what to do or where to go? If they get lost in the grocery store or mall do they know where to go and how to ask for help? If they see something strange or dangerous around school, the park or your neighborhood do they need to now how and who to report it too?
Then there are other things a little more dangerous like when a stranger tries to talk to them, or make them get in their vehicle. If a fire happens at your home in the middle of the night or if someone comes to the door and tries to get in. Maybe, its that you, the parent, had an accident and are unable to tell your child how to help you. Do they know what to do? If youre on vacation or in a strange place that your kids are not used to and they get lost. Who do they ask for help? Where do they go? What do they do? Your kids will be scared and without the proper knowledge of what to do, they might choose the wrong option.
It is important to prepare yourself and your family to be safe, happy and without incident as much as possible. Understand that everyone thinks that things wont happen to them. There will not be a fire in my home, someone will not break into our house, a pedophile will not approach my child, my child will not get lost because Im always around him or her, my son wont be a target in school for bullying, I wont be attacked because I live in a good neighborhood, my family is safe because we live in a good neighborhood and have a security system, there wont be a medical emergency at my home, and if there is, Ill be there to take care of it so my child doesnt need to be aware of anything. Many people think like this, but there are stories everyday about things that happen to people from abductions to accidents that could have been avoided and not result in a tragedy. Lets set a plan so we dont become a statistic.
Making a check sheet is the first step. Make a few columns including Home Safety, School Safety, Vacation Safety, Work Safety, Playground Safety, and Shopping Safety.Listthe things that can go wrong at each place.
Home – Fire, stranger at the door, stranger on the phone, a sibling hurt and no one home, a parent hurt and no one else home, they hurt themselves and are home alone.
School – Bullying, getting hurt on the way to or from school, getting in a fight, being approached by a stranger.
Vacation Safety – Do you know where the nearest hospital, police or emergency station is? Are you familiar with the country youre visiting, is there anything going on in the country, city or hotel that you need to be aware of? Maybe bad weather coming, a certain group you dont want to be associated with at your hotel or safety issues.
Work Safety – Are you parked a long way from work and will you have to walk alone back to your car? Is the parking well lit?
Playground Being approached by a stranger, friends want them to leave playground or do something they shouldnt, getting lost, getting hurt.
Shopping Safety – Do you have a meeting place if the kids get lost? Do you know where lost and found is? Do you know where security is?
It is always important to be prepared. Do you have a current photo of your child? Are you aware of what they are wearing every time you go out so you can give a description if anything happens?
Is that current photo with you or will you have to describe your child if something happens? Its better to show a picture. Its faster and more accurate.
List possible threats and then rank them either in likelihood of happening and or severity of consequence if they dont know what to do.
Rank them both ways and then decide what you would like to teach your child first. Remember safety isnt always just about being attacked. Its about them being safe from harms-way whether its getting hurt in the garage, slipping into the pool, or opening the door/answering the phone when they shouldnt.
There are so many things that we can do to keep ourselves and our families safe. Lets do our best to be prepared and make 2009 as safe as possible!
