Safety-Proof your child: your starter for eight!

In recent days and weeks, much attention has been focused on how to make the world safe for children and how to ensure that unsuitable adults do not have access to them. However, another important action is to safety-proof your child.

Most people tell children not to talk to strangers, but it is equally important to give children positive actions that they can take to look after themselves. We have come up with the following check list. You may want to discuss these and come up with your own list for parents and children at your school.

1. Stay with your friends especially in the evening. This is equally good advice whether the child is eight, eighteen or on a gap year overseas.

2. If your child feels threatened by a situation/person, tell them to go into a shop/ approach people working publicly e.g. dustmen/police or parents with other children/or go to a house. Children must not be afraid of all adults.

3. Stay in a public place. Only walk on well-populated streets, even if it makes the journey longer. Don’t take short cuts. Discuss with your children any areas that you feel are potentially dangerous and make these “no-go” areas.

4. Discuss possible scenarios with your child but in a positive way; i.e. what would you do if…..

5. Most parents have a “worry-time”, particularly for teenagers. This is the gap between when you expect them home and when you start phoning the hospitals. Make sure that they understand this; that you are not trying to limit what they do but that you do need to know where they are. Youngsters are usually quite tolerant of their parents’ panics, are mortified/embarrassed at the thought that you’ve phoned the hospital, so can be quite co-operative!

6. Make sure you know who their friends are (surnames and home phone numbers, not just nicknames!) but emphasise why you need to know and that you are not checking up on them.

7. Whilst most youngsters have mobile phones, these do not always work, so make sure they know how to use pay phones, have the necessary money (currently 30 pence) and money for a bus.

8. And finally, don’t panic. This problem has always existed. Most adults can remember getting safety warnings from their parents and the risks are not significantly worse today than they were in the past.