Child | Parenting Medical Resource

Getting your dog used to children

Many families have dogs. When a new-born arrives into the family this is often an issue. Dogs are seen as unpredictable. Family members do not want to risk bringing dogs and small kids together. But if you happen to ask families that have had plenty of dogs and plenty of children you would know. Dogs can be taught to be really gentle on small children. In fact even ferocious dogs are gentle on small kids.

If you want to bring-up a dog, the best time would be when it is a puppy. During its growth you can change its personality to suit your needs. Training dogs is easier at the puppy stage. When dogs become big, they find it difficult to learn certain core skills.

Build a bond with your dog

A bond of trust and understanding has to happen between the dog and the master. This will help the master control the dog better. The dog responds to its master better if the bond is strong. In the future, when you have new-borns it will be easy for you to control your dog, and influence its behavior the way you want it to be.

Don’t tie the dog and get it used to children

When getting your dog used to children, don’t fasten it somewhere. You should hold your dog, while letting your children come and touch it. Children can be intimidating to the dog. Children have fast motions, will make eye-contact, and raise their voice. All this might startle the dog initially. But if you have a firm grip on it, it should be OK after some time.

Filed Under: Need to Know, Prevention Tagged With: Child, Dog, Family (biology)

How a New Mommy Can Learn How to Care for a Sick Baby

It is always heartbreaking when your baby gets sick. It is even worse when you are a new mommy who is not sure how to handle the baby when he or she is sick. If you are a mommy who is expecting a precious bundle of joy soon and you want to be prepared for this unfortunate event, there are some things that you can do to help you to gain the knowledge that you need in order to effectively care for your baby and get him or her well again.

Baby books are an excellent resource for learning how to deal with common ailments, as it concerns your baby. You can learn things, like how to treat a fever, the flu, diarrhea, or the common cold. It is important that you read these books thoroughly because treatments are not always the same for babies as they are for adults. Not to mention, babies must take medicines that are specific to babies. Anything else can be very harmful.

You can also ask your pediatrician. Your pediatrician will be able to give you pamphlets that will help you to address your baby’s health concerns, as well as provide you with expert advice.

Finally, there is the Internet. On the Internet, you can find out everything you need to know concerning how to treat a baby’s ailments. Just type what you want to know in the search engines, and you will be given tons of information. You can even join parenting message boards, where parents will provide you with advice based on their own personal experience.

Being a new mommy does not have to be scary. Just arm yourself with the information needed, things will be fine.

Filed Under: Need to Know, Parents Needs Tagged With: Child, Emergency evacuation, Family, Mother

Ways to Keep Your Kids Safe At Home

Normal parents who love their kids and want the best for them want to make sure the home environment is warm and safe. When kids know that they are safe, they will feel confident and secure. If you are not sure how to make your home one hundred percent safe for your kids, you will find these tips to be quite helpful.

Having an alarm system is one way that you can keep your home safe. An alarm system will provide safety in two major ways. The alarm system will keep intruders out, and it will keep your kids in. If you have a small child who likes to wonder out, especially in the middle of the night, the alarm will sound when they open the door. Your children will be kept out of the way of harm.

Something else you can do to insure the safety of your kids is to keep all things that are hazardous out of their reach. Kids are very curious and love to experiment, which can sometimes result in them getting into dangerous things and causing harm to themselves. Keep all hazardous things locked up where only you can get to them. Examples of things that can be considered hazardous to kids are house cleaning supplies, some glues, rubber cement, and anything that has the label that states it should be kept out of the reach of children. Of course, you can be more lax about this as the kids get older, but when they are younger, you definitely want to keep these sorts of things away from them.

When you have young children, especially those who are of toddler age, you will want to take the knobs off of your stove. Taking the knobs off of your stove will prevent your children from turning it on and getting themselves seriously burned.

Filed Under: Parents Needs Tagged With: Child, Kids

How to Keep Your Children Safe in the Pool

Keeping your children safe in the pool is a must if you want to sustain their lives and keep them from getting hurt. You may think that it is difficult to keep them safe while they are in the pool, especially when they are so small and like to wonder around and explore. In order to keep your children safe in the pool by implementing a few safety measures.

One of the numerous ways that you can keep your children safe while they are swimming in the pool is by putting them in life jackets. While you may think that having your children wear life jackets in the pool is a silly idea, it is actually fantastic, especially when they are very young and unable to swim. When the children have life jackets on, they can roam freely about the pool without drowning and without causing you tons of worry. Of course, if the children are old enough to handle themselves in the pool and can swim well, then the life jacket is not needed.

Another way that you can keep your children safe in the pool is by watching them. Even if your children can swim well or are old enough, it is still a good idea to keep a good eye on them because there is always a chance that accidents will happen. If you are there watching the children while they are swimming, you will better be able to help them compared to if you were leaving them unsupervised.

Finally, you can keep your children safe in the pool by having the proper lifeguard equipment on hand all of the time and have quick access to it. You may think that such equipment is unnecessary, since your pool is not a public pool. However, a pool is a pool no matter where you are, and there are always freak chances that accidents will happen, so you will always want to have the proper equipment on hand to take care of things if accidents should happen.

Filed Under: Need to Know, Parents Needs, Pool Tagged With: Child, Parent, Swimming pool

Designing a Pool for Your Family

For families who are able to design the layout of their pool or choose a design, this can be a great chance to incorporate features to keep everyone safe at the pool.

Shallow Areas
If your pool will be used by younger children who are not yet swimming or who are still learning to swim, you will want to provide ample space for them in your pool. A shallow area with water that children can easily stand in as they learn to swim is a great solution and a good place for adults to teach children swimming skills. This area can be at the steps of your pool and roped off to provide a children’s area for supervised games and swimming practice. Be sure that the pool depth does not drop off suddenly where it could be a hazard to swimmers who don’t know the lay of the land.

Diving Areas
If swimmers at your pool intend to do diving, you will want to be certain that there is enough depth for this to be safe. Most above ground pools and some in ground pools are too shallow for safe diving. It has been shown that close to 60% of all diving accidents occur in water that is less than four feet deep. If diving is important to you, plan for added depth, preferably greater than eight feet, in a certain area of your pool to ensure divers’ safety.

Slipping Solutions
Many pool supply stores offer paints and finishes for the bottom pools that provides a rough textured surface. This can be a great option for pool steps or in some cases for the entire bottom of your pool. Textured surfaces may be more difficult to clean, but the right one will provide added traction that is especially important to children in the pool. Anyone can slip on a slick pool surface, but there are many solutions to help prevent these types of accidents.

Filed Under: Parents Needs Tagged With: Child, Home and Garden, Swimming (sport), Swimming pool

Skills to Keep Your Child Safe at the Public Pool

When you and your family visit a public pool, there are many things that you can do to help your children stay safe. A few basic skills will go a long way in helping to prevent injuries and accidents.

Stress Good Listening
Go over the rules with your children before arriving at the pool. They are expected to listen to you and, depending on their swimming abilities and ages, stay close by at all times. It is important for them to listen and follow directions in order to stay safe in the swimming pools and other areas of the facility. Good listening skills will also prevent behavior problems that can result in reckless behavior, running, and other things that could cause accidents.

Get to Know the Staff
If you will be spending a good amount of time at a pool, or even if you are only planning to be there for a few days, be sure your children feel comfortable with the pool’s staff. They should understand the purpose of a lifeguard and why it is important that swimming pools have people to help in case there is an emergency. Children can also know who they can go to at the pool, like the lifeguard or a staff member in uniform, if they become separated from a parent.

Set General Boundaries
Both literal physical boundaries of which pools they can stay in and boundaries for behavior that is acceptable at the pool. This will be a combination of the rules of the pool that are set by the staff and your own personal rules for your children. Be sure that they are clear on exactly what is expected of them before they are distracted by other children and all of the new things around them. As they get older, adjust the rules based on what works for you and for each of your children.

Filed Under: Parents Needs Tagged With: Business and Economy, Child, Swimming pool, United States

The Shallow End: Guidelines for Children

When you have multiple children playing the shallow end of your swimming pool, you will need to be vigilant about setting guidelines to encourage safe swimming pool habits from an early age.

Game Behavior
Swimming pool games are often a big part of childhood summers. Some games, however, can easily create a dangerous situation. Keep track of your children’s games and watch closely, particularly when playing games like Marco Polo where one child’s eyes are shut. It is important for them to be careful and avoid situations where a child could slip and go under in the pool. Some games also encourage running, which should be strictly forbidden both in the pool and around the edges where it’s easy for a child to fall in or trip on the pool’s coping.

Strict Discipline
The swimming pool is not the time to ease up on discipline. While it should be a place to have fun, it is also a place where acting out can put the child, as well as others, in danger. If a child is getting too wild or acting out towards another child, they should be required to sit out for a specified period of time. Following through on time outs, or whatever mode of discipline works in your family, will ensure everyone’s’ safety at the swimming pool.

Swimmers and Non-swimmers
It is important to set guidelines when you have both children who are swimmers and children who are not yet swimming. Swimmers should treat non-swimmers carefully and not encourage them to engage in risky behavior. In pools with varying depths, there should be set pool spaces that are off-limits to children who are not yet strong swimmers. Non-swimmers should give swimmers space to practice on their own. Building respect between all children who are sharing the pool is an important step to safety.

Filed Under: Parents Needs Tagged With: Child, Marco Polo, Swimming (sport), Swimming pool

Talking to Your Children and Their Friends About Pool Safety

For many children, part of having a swimming pool in their backyard is having friends over during the summer. It is important for parents to provide information to their children and their children’s friends about pool safety. You may not feel like the cool parent, but pool safety is too important to skip over.

Explaining in Advance
Before their friends arrive, explain to your children that you will need them to pay attention for a couple minutes to go over pool safety. This may seem unnecessary to your child, but it’s better that they understand in advance than feel bombarded in front of their friends. Explain that you care about their safety and their friends’ safety. It’s also important to stress that all pools have different rules, so their friends will need to know how things are done at this pool.

Your Pool Rules
Don’t feel pressured to allow jumping or diving if this worries you, it’s your pool and your safety rules. If these things can only be done in a certain area of the pool, explain that too. No running and no rowdy behavior are general guidelines that are worth repeating. Some pool owners may want to type up a list of pool rules that can be posted nearby–a good way to reinforce things with older children.

Reclaim Your Cool Parent Role
Some parents are hesitant to talk about pool safety with all guests to their pool for fear of being labeled the stickler for the rules. For everyone’s safety, it’s critical to do it anyway. Start the talk with popsicles or by allowing guests to pick out their pool toys. Let the kids eat lunch outside by the pool after swimming. There are plenty of ways stay the cool parent with the pool while still keeping everyone safe.

Filed Under: Parents Needs Tagged With: Child, Pool fence, Shopping, Swimming pool

Handling a Wild Child at a Pool Party

When one child stands out as the troublemaker at your swimming pool or at your child’s party, there are several ways to handle it.

Explain and Enforce Rules
The child arrives with a blank slate, never assume that because he was trouble last time, he won’t follow the rules this time around. Lay out the rules at the start of the visit or party the same way you would any guest to your pool. Monitor behavior and make corrections at the beginning if rules are being broken. It is important to be clear and consistent in your pool rules.

Use Positive Peer Pressure
Talk to your child ahead of time about this friend. Encourage him to put some pressure on his friend to stick to the rules so that he can be invited back to the pool often. When your child understands why the rules are there and can help you keep a wild friend under control, the friend is much more likely to listen.

Talk to the Parents
If one child is a recurring problem, talk to his parents about these behaviors and why they aren’t okay at your pool. Frame it that you would like to have him back, but want to make sure everyone is safe. Most parents will respect this and talk to the child at home about good behavior and pool safety. If the parent is willing to come along to monitor the child at your pool, this can be a good way to keep wild behavior in check.

Get Serious
If behavior problems can’t be resolved and are putting the child or other children in danger, you may have to say that the child is not allowed back at your pool. Find other times for your child to spend time with the friend, but be clear that the pool is not a safe place for him. You can try again in the future when things may have changed.

Filed Under: Parents Needs Tagged With: Behavior, Child, Parent, Swimming pool

Pool Safety During Children’s Parties

: Image via Wikipedia

When you have other young children over to your swimming pool for a pool party, it’s worth a little extra planning and attention to details to keep everyone safe for the duration of the party.

Find Out About Swimmers
Before anyone gets in the pool, find out if there are children at the party who don’t swim. If you are worried about embarrassing the child, check with parents beforehand. It’s too easy for non-swimmers to succumb to pressure to head to the deep end during parties. If it looks like it will be an issue, it may be wise to close off the deeper end of the pool and keep all of the children where they can touch the bottom of the pool.

Enlist Some Extra Eyes
Ask a couple friends or some other parents of children at the party to join you for the day and play lifeguard. Extra eyes are one of the surest ways to prevent risky behavior and be sure that you can handle any accidents that do occur. If one child has been a problem in the past and you want to invite him again, invite one of his parents to help you on the day of the party. This is a good way to keep behavior in check and give you a little extra help enforcing the pool rules. Be sure to go over your guidelines with your extra eyes before the party so they know what to watch for in the pool.

Monitor Games Carefully
Children’s games can be a great way to keep the party going, but they can also get out of control quickly. Keep an extra close eye on children who are racing or playing games that involve speed, a child having his or her eyes shut, or maneuvering around the edges of the pool quickly. “No running” is one of the important rules that you may find yourself repeating throughout the party.

Filed Under: Need to Know, Parents Needs Tagged With: Child, Home and Garden, Shopping, Swimming pool