Teaching Your Kids To Be Safe While Home Alone

Safe­ty is impor­tant when you are home, but what hap­pens when you’re not? If your child is old enough to stay home alone you should help them under­stand how impor­tant fol­low­ing safe­ty pro­ce­dures are. Teach­ing your chil­dren how to be safe when they’re alone at home is easy. Here’s a com­pre­hen­sive list of safe­ty exer­cis­es to teach your kids how to stay safe when they’re alone at home.

• Make sure your child knows their own per­son­al infor­ma­tion like phone num­ber, address, full name, and aller­gies. If some­thing should occur and your child is aller­gic to a cer­tain med­ica­tion, the para­medics will need to know
• Show your child how to dial 911 and talk to the emer­gency oper­a­tor. This may seem like a no-brain­er but many peo­ple, espe­cial­ly when they’re in dan­ger, freeze up and become com­plete­ly inco­her­ent when the emer­gency oper­a­tor picks up. Explain to your child what to say after they’ve dialed 911 and how its okay if they’re scared and that the emer­gency oper­a­tor is going to send help.
• Post a list of easy to read emer­gency num­bers some­where that your child can see them. Most peo­ple stick these num­bers on the fridge or near the front door. On this list, include your child’s aller­gy infor­ma­tion as well.
• Show your child where the first aid kit is and how to use it. Keep the kit ful­ly stocked and replen­ish items after they’ve been used.
• Do not instill fear when teach­ing your child about home safe­ty. Telling your kids that a bur­glar can strike at any moment when they’re home alone is only going to scare them. Tell your young ones that hav­ing emer­gency num­bers handy are just pre­cau­tions. If you leave your child home alone and they’re con­vinced the house is going to get robbed, you are going to come home to a very unset­tled and scared kid.
• Pre­pare for a pow­er out­age by leav­ing flash­lights and extra bat­ter­ies in an easy to get to place. Show your child how to use the flash­light and load the bat­ter­ies in case of a pow­er fail­ure.
• Keep weapons locked up. If you own a gun or knife col­lec­tion – even if these items are just for show – you need to keep them locked up when your chil­dren are left unsu­per­vised. Fur­ther­more, if there is a break in, the assailant can use these items on your chil­dren.
• Prac­tice evac­u­a­tion routes in case of fire. To real­ly keep your home fire-free when your child is alone, set a no-stove/no-cook­ing rule.
• Par­ents, don’t for­get to leave your cell phone on at all times and make sure it is at least par­tial­ly charged. Your child needs to be able to reach you when they’re alone and if your phone dies or is off, how can they get in touch?

There is no law that states at what age chil­dren can be left alone so please use your dis­cre­tion. If your child has a prob­lem remem­ber­ing their full name and phone num­ber or likes to break the no-cook­ing rule, they shouldn’t be left alone.