When it comes to your family, nobody likes to think about emergencies. That said, if you want to protect your kids, you must prepare for the unexpected. Simply put, preparation can make all the difference between staying calm or panicking when disaster strikes.
Understandably, amid the trauma of a natural disaster, home invasion, fire, or terrorist attack, most people’s natural instincts will be to panic. This can make an already scary situation much worse — especially for little ones. While you cannot control when or how these events will occur, you can take steps now to prepare your children for the fact that emergencies happen.
Tips for Preparing for the Unexpected
With preparation for emergency safety, you and your children will have the training to know what to do when a crisis occurs. With that in mind, here are some tips to help your family feel ready for the surprising situations life might throw at you:
Memorize Personal Information
Step one in equipping your kids for emergencies is to arm them with information. They need to know their full names, their addresses and at least one parent’s phone number. This way, should they be separated from you or unable to find you, they can tell someone where they need to go.
Teach Appropriate “Stranger Danger”
Train your kids to listen to their guts when something seems off. Whether they’re playing with peers who are getting aggressive or in a public place where something seems suspicious. Make sure they know to stay alert and aware of their surroundings wherever they go.
Create Family Plans for Emergency Safety
Talk as a family about potential emergencies and how to handle them. You might role-play specific scenarios with a focus on staying calm and/or create an emergency kit of important supplies.
Learn Basic First-aid Skills
Go over a few basic first-aid skills with the whole family or, at least, make sure young children know where the first-aid kit is located. You could also look into local classes at the Red Cross, YMCA or YWCA. They can provide training in first-aid skills for you and your kids.
Practice Home Fire Drills
There’s a good reason schools have fire drills: If a fire should ever occur, you want everyone to know what to do. Apply this same principle at home by planning where everyone should go if a fire occurs.
Explain 9-1-1
If your child should ever be in a situation where someone else has been severely injured or ill enough to need emergency assistance, it’s important to know who to call. Explain that 9-1-1 is the number for an emergency operator. Tell your child what information to provide on the phone: name, address, what’s happened, who’s hurt, etc. Communicate the importance of following the operator’s instructions and staying on the line until the operator says otherwise. Further, make sure your child understands that prank-calling the emergency line is a crime in many places.
Have Go-to Emergency Contacts
While kids must know when and how to call 9-1-1, it’s also important that they know who to call for situations that aren’t as dire. Go over natural disasters, fires, break-ins, etc., and why calling 9-1-1 matters. At the same time, have a list of go-to emergency contacts posted somewhere that everyone in the family knows about, so there are resources for less-threatening situations.
Bottom Line:
Think through potential situations that could occur and warrant an emergency. Strategize about what you want your children to know when dealing with these events. Plan for how to deal with everything from a fire to a tornado, and you can equip your children with the training and resources they need. For a run-down of the most important tips to keep in mind, take a look at the accompanying resource on emergency safety by BlowHard Fans.
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