Imaginif

We had a young man show up in our safety classes this past week with a staples in his head and wrist in a cast. He was all of 7 years old. When asked what happened he replied, “ I fell.” Mom rushed over, interrupted her son, and proceed to tell us to take it easy on him in class because of his head injury. She then proceeded to sit for an hour during class on the sidelines and chat away on her cell phone.

What happened is that the boy, upon receiving g a pair of shoes with wheels on the bottom, fell while scooting around on the wheel part of the shoe. His feet went out from underneath him and back he went and smacked his head. He had no helmet on. The wrist he used to cushion his fall broke.

Every week we have a 5 minute “Chalk Talk” with the kids at the end of class. It usually covers some additional aspect of safety, such as fire, bike or water safety for the kids in class. This night it was wheel safety, including shoes with wheels and protection. From the sidelines, Mom was still on the phone, laughing and animated with conversation.

“If it has wheels under it you wear a helmet on it!” We teach the kids this witty little saying. It true. Anything with wheels requires safety headgear for any child. This includes bikes, skateboards, scooters, inline skates and shoes with wheels, called heelies.

Some smart kids will say, “What about cars?! Cars have wheels!” And, we’ll reply, the roof is the “helmet.” Make sure you have your seat belt fastened, too!

Hopefully, we can make a point with a child, we can catch formulate ideas in a manner they can understand. Hopefully, we can get this young man, who was very, very fortunate to not be injured in a worse way, to understand what we are saying and put his helmet on next time. There will be a next time.

As for his Mom, she is the real problem. We don’t know if we can reach her. It is her responsibility to make sure her son wears a helmet, understands why he wears it and the danger with heelies. On the other hand, she also needs to put down her cell phone and pay attention. She also needs to allow her son to speak for himself. Mom needs a good does of waking up about her lack of parenting skills.

We did take her aside and mention a few things along these lines to her as they both left class. We take our business seriously and we just had to tell her about a few safety practices. We hope they come back to class next week. It would not surprise us if they did not. Total child safety is about parents that understand they are responsible for their child’s safety.

Enough of this…..heelies are wheeled vehicles for your child, too. Have them wear a helmet. Better yet, leave the wheeled shoes at the store. Yes, we get a little crazy when it comes to keeping kids safe!

Preston Jones and Joyce Jackson are child safety experts in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA. Keeping Kids Safe is a comprehensive personal safety program covering the full gamut of the things kids need to know today to be safe in their world for their entire lifetime. Their entire APPROACH to total child safety is UNIQUE. One, they teach kids to keep themselves safe. Two, they teach parents to reinforce their safety techniques at home by making families better with safer kids. For more information go to . www.KeepingKidsSafeToday.com.