If you are a working parent with a young child, you must have a concern about the safety of leaving your kid alone at home. According to a report, Almost 25,000 kids die every year as a result of unfortunate accidents in the home. Yes, this can be little weird but more than 3 million kids go to hospital for home injuries like burns, falls, choking, poisoning etc. It’s natural for every responsible parent to be a little worried when first leaving their child without careful supervision.
You can feel confident and prepared with some extra planning and a couple of controlled trial runs. If it is not feasible, for working parents. Here is a list of few practical and helpful safety tips for children when they are alone at home, so as to ensure your kid security and create a long happy time at home when home alone.
1.Ensure that your child is ready to stay home alone:There are no such rules about what age is acceptable to leave your child alone at home. Experts say it totally depends on maturity and age. Generally, older children are ready to be left alone at home. You can hire an expert sitter for taking care of your daughter or son, if he/she is too young to be left alone at home. Also, be sure to make some best practices about self supervise when you are away.
2. Prepare a Safety Plan:Other important thing you need to do is make sure that your kid knows in an emergency event. Inspect every corner of your home properly for possible safety risks. Check whether the smoke detectors or security alarms are functioning well or not. Paste a chart of all important emergency numbers where your kid can see them.don’t forget to include the contact numbers of nearby family , relatives and neighbours.
3.Install Security Cameras0: Installing security cameras at your home can one of the greatest investments patents can make for their family. These security camera can let you check how your child is doing, are they safe or not, with your own ears and eyes. A home security camera install that is connected to the internet allows you to see anything, anytime. Make sure you buy a security camera system from a trusted and licensed company.
4. Set Specific list of General Rules:Whenever you leave your child alone at home, you should prepare a list of ground rules what is acceptable when they have to do things on their own. With your kid set specific rules which may include but does not have to limited to things such as,
- Only using microwave, or no cooking
- No friends over
- Set ground rules on computer and TV
- No friends over
- Keep windows and main doors locked
- No answering the door or the phone.
Additionally, you can also include other rules that is suitable to you and your favourable situation.
5.Track your child’s phone:Another smart thing you can do keep your child safe is to give them a mobile phone so that you can contact him/her anytime. Make sure you can also track their smartphone. If anything unusual happens, you can find them easily.
For parents their children are one of the precious assets in their life and they obviously want them to be happy and safe. The above mentioned are some of the useful and practical tips for children when left alone at home.