Kindergarten Safety Lessons

For many children, kindergarten represents a giant leap toward independence that may need to new desires, attempts and opportunities to engage in new experiences. While initiative and curiosity are both qualities that you value, children at this age still lack the judgment necessary to enjoy these qualities safely in the absence of close supervision. They will need your help to avoid 8 of the most common hazards for children, so start enforcing rules for your child's general safety.

What You Need to Know

• Being trapped under garage doors with automatic openers due to remotes within children's reach, along with need to test and replace openers manufactured befor 1982 that lack automatic reverse functions which force the door back up if it contacts an object on the way down. 
• Drowning in backyard pools due to being unsupervised for even a little while around pools not completely enclosed by the recommended walls of at least 4 feet, or locked when not in use. 
• Falling off or being run over by lawnmowers and tractors when playing in areas where such machines were in use. 
• Suffocation due to balloons – its leading cause among all children's products – whether uninflated or merely pieces. 
• Other sources like fire, suffocation, ag machinery, bicycles, cuts, falls, vehicle crashes, drownings, and more. 

How You Can Help

You can assist your child in keeping himself by teaching them to: 

• recite name, address, phone number, and place of parental employment
• use the telephone, 911, and other emergency numbers you may have posted
• take a routine route to and from school, parks, stores and other frequent destinations.
• find safety in numbers by using the buddy system
• identify the neighborhood's “safe places”
• practice fire drills and other emergency responses at home
• be aware of what is and is not safe to play with around the house
• avoid entering stranger's cars and homes
• struggle and scream help or that they're being kidnapped if ever grabbed by a stranger
• keep running and never look back until reaching a safe adult, if ever escaping a stranger's grasp
• never accept candy, money or treats from anyone they don't know or trust without first seeking your permission

For more on this topic, see the complete article:

http://www.education.com/reference/article/kindergarten-keeping-your-child-safe/