Over 500,000 children’s head injuries are recorded each year!

The Thudguard hat is a revolutionary product from United Kingdom; an infant safety hat designed to help absorb and reduce the impact of falls from a child’s own height and lessen the chance of head injury.

It is suitable for tumbling tots aged 7-18 months.
[Babys First Headgear]

Jen’s not a fan, she says they’re a little dorky, and while a fine and cute accessory for kids with certain medical needs, she thinks it’s a bit over the top for your average rough and tumble toddler. After all, Jen says, aren’t scrapes and bumps part of being a kid?

I contacted Charlotte from Baby’s First Headgear after Z smacked himself 3 times in 4 days. I even had him wear it to daycare to see what the other kids had to say. He was the centre of attention, and a bit of a curiosity to say the least.

Now you’ll notice the biggest smile and not a care in the world on our little man. He wasn’t the least bit self conscious being totally safe. I mean, we wear helmets when we ride our bikes, why not one when we’re learning to walk? It can be just as bonky on the head.

Jen’s still not convinced. Z hasn’t worn it since that day last week.

Hey at least it wasnt the baby stripper pole, the baby cage or any of these other baby products that should be illegal.

While it’s unlikely the wicked witch at the end of your block will stick a razor blade in an apple, your kids are still running the streets and begging for candy from strangers. Just as you wouldn’t eat food left outside a hotel room because you don’t know where it’s been, you need to sift through your kids’ candy to sift out the unsavouries.

SAFETY TIPS FOR CHILDREN WHILE TRICK OR TREATING

Buy flame resistant costumes, wigs and accessories. The best costumes are bright and reflective. Keep costumes short enough to prevent tripping. Consider adding reflective tape or striping for greater visibility.

* Give every child a flashlight with fresh batteries. Remind children of traffic safety rules, and that they should cross streets at corners, and to never cross between parked cars.
* Make sure that children know how to call 9-1-1 or their local emergency number if they experience an emergency or become lost. 9-1-1 can be dialed free from any pay phone.
* Secure emergency information (name, address, telephone number) within a child’s Halloween attire.
* Give older children coins for non-emergency calls.
* Teach children to STOP, DROP and ROLL should their clothing catch fire: STOP immediately. DROP to the ground and cover face, unless hands are on fire. ROLL over and over until the flames are extinguished.

SAFETY TIPS FOR ADULTS
* Be extra careful when driving. Excited children can forget safety rules. Make sure to appoint a designated driver if you are attending adult Halloween parties.
* Accompany children when they go out trick or treating. Explain to children the difference between tricks and vandalism.
* Community centres, shopping malls and houses of worship may hold organized Halloween events. As an alternative, start one in your neighbourhood.

SAFETY AT HOME
* Consider using only battery powered lanterns or chemical light sticks instead of candles in decorations.
* Votive candles are the safest for pumpkins. Keep candles, matches and lighters away from the reach of children. Place lighted pumpkins on sturdy tables, away from curtains and other flammable objects. Never leave them unattended.
* When decorating your home, ensure that electrical outlets are not overloaded with holiday lighting or special effects. Keep exit doors unblocked. Replace bulbs on outdoor lights. Check the batteries in your smoke alarms. Test monthly; replace annually.
* Eliminate tripping hazards on your porch and walkways. Check for flower pots, low tree limbs, support wires or garden hoses that may prove hazardous for young children as they rush from house to house.

PET SAFETY
* Make pets safe by keeping them away from the door and visiting trick or treaters, and do not let them outside. Ensure that they are wearing collars and proper I.D. tags. Talk to a veterinarian for advice more specific to individual pets.
* Remember that chocolate is deadly for pets. So are plastic and foil candy wrappers. Give pets an extra biscuit, not Halloween candy.
* Dog’s tails can be lethal weapons. Keep dogs and cats away from Jack-O-Lanterns or lighted candles; they could knock them over and start a fire or receive serious burns.
* If holding an indoor Halloween party, place pets in a room, well away from the party. Leave them with food and water. Check on them once in a while, to let them know everything is fine.

Common sense should rule the day and everyone will end up with a safe and scary Halloween without the irrational fear culminating in a cancelling of Halloween.

Check with your local Fire or Police Department for by-laws and regulations on discharging fireworks in your municipality. Be aware many municipalities have changed their by-laws concerning rules and regulations regarding fireworks.

Family or Consumer Fireworks Safety Tips:
Adults must take responsibility to supervise all fireworks activities. Fireworks are not toys. They burn at approximately the same temperature as a household match and can cause burn injuries and ignite clothing if improperly lit.

Read and follow all warnings and instructions. Do not purchase or use unlabeled fireworks. Homemade fireworks are deadly. One third of the injuries associated with fireworks have typically been caused by illegal explosives or homemade fireworks.

It is illegal for minors to purchase and possess fireworks. It is illegal to sell fireworks to minors.

Use fireworks outdoors only. Never try to re-light fireworks that have not fully functioned and always have water handy in a garden hose or bucket.

Sparklers are often considered harmless fun. However, they can burn as hot as 650° Celsius (1200 °Fahrenheit) and can ignite clothing. As with other fireworks, always use them outdoors under adult supervision. Place used sparklers immediately into a metal container.

The majority of the injuries from family or consumer fireworks involve misuse rather than malfunction.

Organizers need a permit to set off display fireworks. The actual firing of the display is conducted by a trained pyrotechnic operator and crew. Crowd control is mandatory.

Display Fireworks Safety Tips:

* Spectators should obey all safety personnel and respect the security barriers set up to allow the trained operator to safely do his job.
* If a firework component falls to the ground without exploding, immediately tell the safety personnel. Do not touch the fireworks.
* Leave the lighting of all fireworks to the trained operator when you attend a public display. Consumer fireworks are not appropriate to use when a large crowd is present.
* Taking pets to a fireworks display is not a good idea. The loud noises can hurt their ears and cause them to panic. Leave pets at home if you are going to a fireworks show.
* Regulation alone cannot protect the public. It must be combined with personal responsibility and awareness.

Most importantly, have a safe and scary Halloween!

Photo on Flickr by mckaysavage.

Car seat installation manuals are beasts when it comes to navigating the correct way to install a car seat. Goofy drawings that make Ikea manuals easy. Toss in acronyms and long drawn out directions and it’s tougher for a man to get through than one of his wife’s Shopaholic books.

Car seat installation videos, on the other hand, make life easier. I can see it from different angles, they can talk me through it, I can follow along with the manual. I can stop, rewind, watch it again. If they have videos showing us how to put on airplane seatbelts, there needs to be manufacturer videos for car seat installation.

I’m currently reviewing the Safety 1st Air Protect from Dorel. The manual is like any other manual – tough. They have videos on their website touting the seat’s safety, but not for installation.

I believe the manufacturer needs to be more obvious about these videos and include a dvd in the box, or a clear link to a website with a YouTube video showing me someone doing it properly.

4 out of 5 parents don’t know how to correctly install a car seat. 80%. The car seat can be as solid as a brick wall and as light and cushiony as angel wings, but if I don’t install it properly it’s not going to work.

Car seat installation is the most important part of car seat safety.

Here are some useful car seat installation resources:

BCAA’s Traffic Safety Foundation, with ICBC, has developed a comprehensive Child Passenger Safety Program. It includes a Toll-free Child Car Seat information line: 1-877-247-5551 and car seat clinics.

Carseatsite.com has a comprehensive list of car seat installation videos, some of them even for specific manufacturers.

Dorel, the Safety 1st Air Protect manufacturer, partnered with CanadianFamily.ca to create a video about installation basics.

This post is part of a series encompassing Car Seat 101.

[Disclosure: Safety 1st gave us a car seat to keep and review. They are not involved in the editorial related to our review and are not a direct sponsor of DadCAMP.]

Choices: 1. convertible seat (one that serves from infants all the way to toddlerdom)
2. infant car seat (the type that looks like a baby basket and only lasts a few months)

For Zacharie we had an infant seat from a friend. I tossed out to Twitter to ask for some advice on the two options. It would be great not to have to buy 2 car seats for Chuck.

Is there anyone that used a convertible seat for an infant and liked it?

@stv convertible. And I totally regretted it.

@Lilikoilane we got an infant only carseat. I loved being able to take it out & attach it to our stroller. Now at 13 mnths we have a convertable

@SlvvrLambStudios infant. easier to have baby in one when you need your hands for other little ones. A tleast in my experience.

@LeftCoastMama I recommend a bucket and base until your baby is older since it is harder to get the convertibles to work for infants.

We’ve received the Safety 1st Air Protect, a convertible car seat to review (and keep), but Jen’s put her foot down on using it for Chuck. (Its now allowed us to have a seat in each of our cars, full review as a toddler option coming soon). Judging by the Twitter response on convertibles, I would agree. It’s a pain in the bank to do 2, but a bigger pain to wake a sleeping infant.

We’re hitting up our new baby friends for another infant car seat, and checking Craigslist a little bit, but that makes me nervous. Car seats are pretty delicate devices, would you buy a car seat on Craigslist not 100% sure of it’s accident history?

Did you use a convertible car seat and not have a problem with it?

[Disclosure: Safety 1st gave us a car seat to keep and review. They are not involved in the editorial related to our review and are not a direct sponsor of DadCAMP.]

This generation of children is the most pampered and protected of its kind in all of history. Of course, that’s probably been true of every subsequent generation of the past 150 years, if not longer. Still, some instances of helicopter parenting are particularly exasperating. One is the radical change in children being restricted from walking to and from school on their own.

The Saturday New York Times took on this provocative issue:

In 1969, 41 percent of children either walked or biked to school; by 2001, only 13 percent still did, according to data from the National Household Travel Survey. In many low-income neighborhoods, children have no choice but to walk. During the same period, children either being driven or driving themselves to school rose to 55 percent from 20 percent. Experts say the transition has not only contributed to the rise in pollution, traffic congestion and childhood obesity, but has also hampered children’s ability to navigate the world.

The article, as it happens, describes an incident from “a Vancouver suburb”:

Lisa Reid, who lives in a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, had signed a permission form, but when her first-grader proudly told his teacher he was walking home himself last spring, a distance of six houses, the teacher was incredulous. She took him to the office and called Mrs. Reid, who didn’t hear the phone. That was because Mrs. Reid was pacing at the end of the driveway, waiting for her son, her worries climbing exponentially as the moments ticked by.

The article goes on to explain that–the math here is mine–a child is more than 2000 times likelier to be injured in a car accident than be abducted by a stranger. There are the 62 million American children under the age of 14, and only about 115 of them are abducted by strangers every year. In Canada, there are about 40 to 50 stranger abductions a year.

I wonder why it’s so much higher, per capita in Canada? Maybe there are differences in how the crime is defined? In Canada, a stranger is apparently anybody other than a parent or guardian–”a close friend, neighbour, uncle, grandparent or another family member”. I wasn’t able to find a definition for ’stranger abduction’ in the US.

In short, the odds of a particular child being abducted are extremely small. Not to be all “when I was a young’un”, but the truth is that the abduction risk hasn’t changed since I walked about 500 meters home from elementary school in the eighties.

I should recognize that there are still many levelheaded parents out there. Derek, for example, lets his kids walk to school (and take other risks). It’s a little sad, if not surprising, that our the majority’s perceptions have so overruled the very safe reality.

While writing this post, I remembered the excellent map that accompanies this Daily Mail article.

About This Author: Darren Barefoot is a leading social media strategist from Victoria, BC. He and wife Julie Szabo have no children, but they are building a beautiful home on Pender Island. You can follow Darren @dbarefoot

Photo: “Two Happy Girls” from Pink Sherbet Photography