School has begun again, and students are quickly falling back into the routine of classes, homework, and extracurricular activities. As you send your children off to school each morning, it’s never a bad idea to remind them to stay safe.
Here are a few safety tips to keep in mind in the back to school season:
- Make sure your child is aware of stranger danger. Children have been taught for generations to not accept rides or gifts from strangers or talk to strangers. This may seem like paranoia to some, but it is a sure way to reduce the chances of a child being kidnapped or taken advantage of. Even if the person seems nice and is offering to drive your child a few blocks, he or she should not accept the ride and wait for their designated ride as planned.
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- Drop your children off as close to the school grounds as possible. Letting your child off at the fast food restaurant across the street from the school is still inviting trouble. If your child is not walking or biking to school with a group of trusted friends or riding the bus, parents should make sure children enter the school safely.
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- Make sure your child has proper safety gear. If your child rides a bike or a scooter to school, make sure he or she is wearing a helmet and any other necessary safety gear. Helmets save lives – and should your child have an accident, you want him or her to be as safe as possible. Teach your child the rules of the road for a cyclist, which will minimize the chances of an accident.
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- Talk to your child about driving. If you have a teenager driving him or herself to school, make sure they understand all traffic laws and know to practice good judgment while driving. Make sure they fully understand how to act in an emergency and what to do when they are involved in a wreck. Your kids may call you a helicopter parent, but if they have an accident they will appreciate everything you taught them.
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- Make sure your child practices backpack safety. Backpacks that are overloaded or hanging open distribute weight unevenly on the student’s back and can cause back pain or spinal injuries. Teach your child to take care of his or her health by not carrying more than they need and centering their bag evenly on their back.
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- Ask about playground safety. Elementary school children are given a set amount of time every day to let out their energy on the playground. Make sure your children’s playground is safe and there are minimal opportunities for serious injury. While bumps and scrapes are to be expected on the playground, serious cuts from jagged or broken playground equipment are injuries that can and should be prevented.
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- Teach your child how to handle bullying: This is one of the most serious problems in schools across America, and children need to be taught that bullying is never okay and that physical violence is no way to handle bullying behavior.
If your child is in an accident or suffers an injury of any kind, contact the Columbus personal injury lawyers at Ohio Injury Law.
