Children's Safety

Application Week One

Jennifer McCarty

• Identify at least five potentially hazardous situations/safety threats common to your age group.
• For each of the hazardous situations or safety threats:
o Summarize specific safety policies that apply to these situations/threats.
o Describe measures that should be taken to prevent and/or deal with these situations/threats.
o Indicate what families can do to ensure the safety of the child at home.
I am in the future going to be working with infants. Infants rely on their caregiver for all of their needs. Things that may be unsafe for a child of this age are inappropriate toys. A child of this age needs toys that cannot swallowed, that do not break very easily or at all, At this age the child is putting everything into their mouths so you have to make sure the toys they play with are safe for the child. Being burned is another concern. The bath water that the child bathes in has to be lukewarm, and not so warm that the water burns the child. Falling is another big concern. Some infants are starting to walk as early as nine months old, so making sure there is carpeting on the floor to minimize the impact of the fall, as well as to make sure the surfaces they may run into cause the least amount of injury. Because the child puts everything into their mouths there is more risk of the child choking, so making sure to watch the child and to make sure they have the appropriate toys is very important. Lastly, because the child can get into anything, making sure any harmful substances are well out of reach of the child is also very important because those substances can cause serious harm.
In the home you have to make sure any harmful substances are out of reach of the child, put gates across doorways as well as cupboards, make sure the toys are appropriate for the age of that child, and just making sure your child is happy and healthy is always the most important thing to remember.