If you crawl around your home, or walk around on your knees, you will get the same perspective of your house as your young children.  It’s an eye opener!  Counters are over your head, coffee tables are at eye level, and there are all sorts of fun things in cabinets and under the couch!

Your children encounter things in your house differently than adults.  To keep them safe at home, you need to look at it from their different perspective.  Some of the most common home injuries for children include burns, poisonings, drowning, animal bites, choking, and falls, quite often from climbing on things and exploring.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that:

• Younger children are at higher risk of burns from scalding hot liquids or steam.
• Older children are more often burned directly from flames.
• Each day 374 children under age 19 are treated at an emergency room.
• Two children die each day from poisoning.

Many of these accidents are preventable with careful home child-proofing. To protect the youngest members of your family, follow these Consumer Product Safety Commission guidelines:

1. Safety latches and locks for cabinets and drawers in kitchens, bathrooms, and other areas, to help prevent poisonings and other injuries.
2. Safety gates, door knob covers and door locks to help prevent falls down stairs and to keep children from entering rooms and other areas with potential dangers.
3. Anti-scald devices for faucets and shower heads. Set your water heater temperature to 120 degrees Fahrenheit to help prevent burns from hot water.
4. Smoke alarms on every level of your home, inside each bedroom, and in outside sleeping areas, to alert you to fires, and carbon monoxide (CO) alarms near sleeping areas to help prevent CO poisoning.
5. Window guards and safety netting to help prevent falls from windows, balconies, decks, and landings.
6. Corner and edge bumpers to help prevent injuries from falls against sharp edges of furniture and fireplaces.
7. Outlet covers and plates to help prevent electrocution.
8. Tassels on each window blind cord and inner cord stops on mini blinds to help prevent strangulation.
9. Anchors to avoid furniture and appliances from tipping over.
10. Layers of protection on pools and spas including fencing with locked gates, pool covers and alarms to prevent drowning.

Okay everyone, we’ve been writing for years about the perils of distracted driving. As another holiday season approaches and hoards of us get on the road, it’s time for a quick refresher. The research is in and it clearly shows that teens are at far greater risk than the rest of us. So let’s focus on teen distracted driving and save our kids!

First the facts about distracted driving (this is supposed to scare you):

• In 2009, 5,474 people were killed in crashes involving driver distraction, and about 448,000 people were injured.
• Teen drivers are more likely than those in other age groups to be involved in a fatal crash in which distraction is a factor. In 2009, 16% of teen drivers involved in fatal crashes were reported to have been distracted.
• 40% of all American teens say they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put people in danger.
• Drivers who use hand-held devices are 4 times more likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves.
• Text messaging creates a crash risk 23 times higher than driving while not distracted.
• Using a cell phone while driving – whether it’s hand-held or hands-free – delays a driver’s reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent.
• Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37%.

Now that you are concerned, let’s look at examples of distracted driving: (this is to clarify what you and your family need to avoid)

• Texting or using a cell phone or smartphone in any way
• Eating or drinking
• Talking to passengers
• Combing hair, cleaning teeth, or fixing makeup
• Reading, including maps
• Using a navigation system
• Watching a video
• Yelling at the kids
• Adjusting a radio, CD player, or MP3 player

Get it? All of these things distract a driver and increase the possibility of an auto accident. Since text messaging requires visual, manual, and cognitive attention from the driver, it is by far the most disturbing distraction.

If you are a teen reading this, smarten up! As common place as driving is, and no matter how great a driver you are, it’s one of the most dangerous things you do each day. So put the phone down, and focus on driving safely.

If you’re a parent reading this, be creative. The statistics may scare you, but if you know teenagers, you know they think they are immortal. A serious conversation is necessary, and education is essential. But don’t stop there. Make it important to them to drive safely, and put immediate consequences that are meaningful to a teen on distracted driving. As a parent, you know well how difficult it is to get your teenagers’ attention or get them to follow your rules. However, as tough as it might be, enforcing a rule against distracted driving is critical for their personal safety.