Child Safety Tips For The Holidays

 

HOLIDAYS

It’s the holiday season again, a time when we enjoy festive meals with family and friends, deck our halls with colorful decorations and listen to squeals of delight as our children open their brightly-wrapped presents. To help ensure your kids have fun and stay safe this holiday, here are a few tips to remember.

Hard Facts about Holiday Safety

• In 2012, 3,270 children 19 and under were seen in emergency rooms for injuries caused by nonelectric holiday decorations, like broken ornaments.
• In 2012, an estimated 192,000 children were treated in an emergency room for a toy-related injury.
• That same year, an estimated 136,314 children ages 19 and under were injured due to a fire or burn.

Top Tips about Holiday Safety

1. Make sure your tree has plenty of water by checking it regularly. Natural trees look beautiful and smell great, but if they’re not watered regularly, needles can dry out and pose a potential fire hazard.
2. Keep lit holiday candles at least 12 inches away from anything that can burn, and don’t forget to blow them out when you leave the room or before you go to sleep.
3. Consider your child’s age when purchasing a toy or game this holiday season. It’s worth a second to read the instructions to make sure the gift is just right.
4. Keep a special eye on small pieces, including button batteries that may be included in electronic toys. While these kinds of games are great for older kids, they can pose a potential danger for younger, curious siblings.
5. Prevent burns from hot holiday food or liquid spills, simply use the back burner of your stove and turn pot handles away from the edge.
6. Move the ornaments that are breakable or have metal hooks towards the top of the tree. That makes room at the bottom for the ones that are safer for young kids. 

Learn More

Learn more about holiday safety tips to keep you and your kids safe. 

Simple Steps for an Extra Safe Halloween

 

Kids love the magic of Halloween, but many communities canceled their celebrations in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, is it safe to trick-or-treat this year? 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, in a Sept. 26 interview,  said yes, but families still should use caution. The CDC also updated its holiday safety tips, applicable to all of the upcoming holidays.

Of course, Halloween costume and traffic safety measures still apply for trick-or-treaters.

Costume Safety

To help ensure adults and children have a safe holiday, fda.gov has compiled a list of Halloween safety tips. Before Halloween arrives, be sure to choose a costume that won't cause safety hazards.

• All costumes, wigs and accessories should be fire-resistant
• If children are allowed out after dark, fasten reflective tape to their costumes and bags, or give them glow sticks
• Opt for nontoxic Halloween makeup over masks, which can obscure vision; always test makeup in a small area first to see if any irritation develops
• Remove all makeup before children go to bed to prevent skin and eye irritation

When They're on the Prowl

Here's a scary statistic: Children are more than twice as likely to be hit by a car and killed on Halloween than on any other day of the year. Lack of visibility because of low lighting at night also plays a factor in these incidents.

Keep these tips in mind when your children are out on Halloween night:

• A responsible adult should accompany young children on the neighborhood rounds
• If your older children are going alone, plan and review a route acceptable to you
• Agree on a specific time children should return home
• Teach your children never to enter a stranger's home or car
• Instruct children to travel only in familiar, well-lit areas and stick with their friends
• Tell your children not to eat any treats until they return home, and take care to avoid any food allergies
• Children and adults are reminded to put electronic devices down, keep heads up and walk, don't run, across the street

Safety Tips for Motorists

NSC offers these additional safety tips for parents – and anyone who plans to be on the road during trick-or-treat hours:

• Watch for children walking on roadways, medians and curbs
• Enter and exit driveways and alleys carefully
• At twilight and later in the evening, watch for children in dark clothing
• Discourage new, inexperienced drivers from driving on Halloween

SEASONAL SAFETY Parent’s Guide to Child Safety - Thanksgiving

Child Safety on Thanksgiving Day

The Thanksgiving holiday does not get a lot of attention over child safety matters, especially compared to holidays like Christmas or the Fourth of July. Yet turkey day does come with a few significant safety hazards that could spoil your family's fun. Here are some tips that will help ensure you have a happy and safe thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving safety risks:

1. On Thanksgiving day there is an increase in child accidents of all types, particularly poisoning.

2. Thanksgiving presents an increased risk of fire dangers and burns from cooking.

3. There is the potential for food poisoning

4. Drunk driving deaths spike around the Thanksgiving holiday.

Keeping children and family safe on Thanksgiving day:

1. Focus on child supervision. The biggest threat to kids on Thanksgiving day is that you often get a combination of visiting family members (which means preoccupied adults) and children who are left to their own devices, frequently in the strange and new environment of a relative’s home. Add to this mix the hustle and bustle of adults preparing extravagant meals, and you get a recipe for accidents. So don't let supervision lapse on Thanksgiving day. If possible, assign a particular set of adults to monitor the children. This ensures others don't presume that someone else is watching them, only to have it turn out that everybody thought someone else was watching them. Also employ older kids to help monitor the younger ones, and make sure they know what safety risks to watch out for. (Read them our safety book for kids: What Bigger Kids Can Do)

2. Child poisonings tend to spike on Thanksgiving, since relatives tend to be visiting or children are staying over at a relatives house, where childproofing is often lax. Medication carried in purses or suitcases is often a source. So if you have relatives over, ask them at the door if they have any medication with them, and store it in a locked cabinet. If visiting a relatives house, ask them where any poisonous items are kept so that you can steer your children away.

3. A hidden source of danger on Thanksgiving comes from those who cook their turkey by deep frying it. Every year, firefighters respond to several thousand house fires caused by families deep-frying their turkey. So if you decide to cook your turkey this way, do so safely: Do it outside whenever possible, and have a grease-fire rated fire extinguisher on hand to put out a fire should one start. (Remember that water will make a grease fire bigger, not put it out)

4. Monitor the drinking of all your guests, and do not let anyone get behind the wheel while intoxicated. Keep alcoholic beverages in a separate area from kids drinks, so that kids don't accidentally grab the wrong one.

How to safely cook a holiday Turkey

To ensure that your Thanksgiving feast does not turn into a nightmare of regret a few days later, follow these simple steps for safely cooking your holiday turkey:

1. The safest way to thaw your turkey is in the refrigerator. Putting it in a sink with cold water can give any bacteria that may exist a chance to grow. Give your turkey plenty of time to thaw - frozen turkeys are a common source of food borne illness, since they may result in uneven cooking that leaves raw spots where bacteria can survive.

2. Cooking the turkey thoroughly is the only way to destroy potentially harmful bacteria. The oven should be set to a minimum temperature of 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Simmering a turkey overnight at lower temperatures may result in food-borne illness.

3. You should cook a whole turkey to the point that a food thermometer registers at least 180 degrees Fahrenheit in the innermost part of the thigh. Don't rely solely on a "pop-up" temperature indicator that came with the turkey. Double check it with a food thermometer in several places.

4. If cooking a stuffed turkey, check the temperature of both the stuffing and the turkey. Remember that the raw juices of the turkey have leached into the stuffing, making it a potential source of food poisoning, too. So check the temperature of the stuffing and don't remove the turkey from the oven until the stuffing reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Or simply cook the stuffing in a separate casserole tray, which is safest.


5. When it's time to pack up the leftovers, de-bone the turkey and separate it from the stuffing. Refrigerate them both in shallow containers. The safe storage time on leftover turkey kept in the fridge is around 4 days. Beyond that, you're taking your chances with it.