All homes hold hazards for youngsters. Show them what they are and how to avoid them. Child-proof your home.

Description:
Parents need to make their children aware of the hidden dangers in his/her child?s environment. The worst kind of childhood injury, is the one that could have been prevented.

Children have been electrocuted by sticking toys in electrical outlets; hung by getting their necks wrapped in venetian blind and drapery cords; broken their necks falling down stairs; suffocated in dryers; poisoned themselves with medicines, automobile and cleaning products; cut themselves with sharp knives; fallen out of upper story windows; shot themselves with guns; let themselves out of the house and been hit by cars or lost; and crushed themselves with falling appliances or furniture.

Set some time aside to child-proof your home and to show your child the hazards around your home in which to be especially aware. The best way to warn your child in a dangerous situation is to use the word ?DANGER!? When you always use the word ?NO,? it becomes too familiar and the child can not differentiate hazardous situations from unwanted ones.

For more information contact: ?The Safe As Possible Campaign,? PO Box 4312, Great Neck , NY 11023 or on the internet at: nobooboos@aol.com or www.AsSafeAsPossible.org

Step by Step:
Sit in each room, identify each of the hazards, write them down and then start a prevention plan.
Look in the yellow pages of your phone book and find a store that specializes in children?s accessories.
Get plastic plugs to cover open electrical outlets and warn your child to never stick anything in the holes, including their fingers.
Get special, child-safe, cupboard and drawer latches and install them on all cupboard and storage doors, particularly the ones where you store guns, knives, cleaning and automotive products.
Show your child the different products and tell them never to eat or play with them.
If you have a basement or attic, install a lock on the door that a child can?t operate and keep the door closed and locked.
For second story homes install child gates at the top and bottom of the stairs.
Install interior locks up very high on your exterior windows and doors to prevent your child from falling out of a window or from shoving a chair to the door, climbing up and unlocking the usual lock and sliding chain guard.
Make sure all venetian blind and drapery cords are well away from cribs and beds and hooked up high out of reach.
Check all of your appliances and heavy furniture and make sure they can?t be toppled if a child climbs on them.
Bolt unsteady furniture to the wall.
Buy a stove burner protector and keep it over the burners, when not using the stove.
Make sure you purchase only non-flammable clothing for your child.
Remember ?an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.?

Materials:
Child-proof locks and implements