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SAFETY IS ABOUT FACTS!REALITY CHECK ON SAFETY!
A new era in child safety!YOUR SAFETY EYES!See things with a sense of purpose!!Learn to look at the world around with a sense of purpose. As you look around you, consider the potential danger. Learn to use all your senses to evaluate your environment. "Safety Eyes" can be an asset. If there was a vicious dog on your porch when you opened the door – “Do you think you would have “Safety Eyes”? Absolutely! Two “great big safety eyes” as you slammed the door shut. If you heard the familiar sounds of a rattlesnake in the weeds nearby where you were standing, your "Safety Ears" would be your link to the situation. At that point and time your eyes would be looking and your brain would be processing the situation knowing that an incorrect move could result in a fatal injury.
Our senses link us to our environment!Some dangers are easy to spot - others are hidden. So as you move about your “spaces” in your home, always do so with a sense of purpose. The skill of assessing the potential dangers of any and every environment will become automatic after a while. Don’t ever assume there are no threats present, because there are almost always potential risks everywhere you go. When you notice a threat you can respond to the threat before it is too late. Your child is playing in your neighbor’s play pen while you are visiting next door. What is in the play pen? Is there anything they could choke on? Is there anything sharp? Your “safety eyes” assessed the situation and without any effort, you increased the safety level for your child in this unfamiliar play pen. The process can become automatic. When you get a “red flag” (a significant risk), you take action, you are in control and your child is safer because you are looking through your "Safety Eyes".
If you don't know, then what?Kids are everything!Perceptions need to be accurate!If you are going to jump, you had better know if the landing is going to be OK. We react to our environment based on our perceptions as to what we perceive as a threat. Injuries can happen from some things that seem rather harmless. You need to know what can hurt you and what to do about the managing the risk. Falling down can be extremely serious and is one the main reasons children are injured. To fall on the living room rug may be OK, but if a child falls and hits their head on the sharp edge of a coffee table the results can be a major event. Take action - do it now!
As the parent, you need to be aware of the difference, and when a significant risk presents itself, take action to eliminate it. Remove "it" before "it", gets your child! This is a battle of “wits" between “us” and "things" around us. We have the intelligence, if we just apply it, then we can manage the things around us that can create injuries for us and our children.
FIND THE THINGS THAT HURT!Safety requires a state of mind of readiness!
Take a look and assess the dangers your own home. Remember that danger is a “moving target”. The potential for danger changes from moment to moment. If you leave the medicine bottle open it will change your safe home into a potentially dangerous home in a split second. There are several web sites that offer home survey checklists. This is basic training for you the parent. You are worthless to your children unless you know. You’ve got to do it! 
A state of mind!While holding a hair dryer, you look down at your feet and you realize you are standing in water on the floor. What you do with this information is determined by your state of mind. In your safety training you learned that this can be a very dangerous or perhaps even a fatal situation. Are you going to put the dryer down and dry the floor or are you “in hurry” and this time you will "chance it". By developing the habit of evaluating your “space” and your children’s “space” for potential danger, you dramatically improve the degree of protection. If you walk from one room to another your risks are different. The defensive mechanism will become automatic and you adjust your safety inputs as needed. YOUR LEVEL OF RISK JUST INCREASED!Walk from the den into the kitchen and your level of risk just increased. Put a skillet on the stove and start cooking some hamburger patties and your risk just went up significantly. If your child walks into the kitchen their level of risk just rose considerably - even more than yours. To understand this principal gives you a tremendous advantage in staying ahead of a potential accident. Being cool is a cultural thing!
Reality is a great teacher!We need to focus on what is “reality”. Much of what we perceive is distorted by our “looking glass” which can be filled with incorrect information. A reality check requires us to learn what is going on. We need “information” and the ability to determine what this means. “Reality checks” can occur as the result of an accident. If you light a gas fire incorrectly and you have a fire that "blows up" into your face, you have just had a “reality check”. There is a better way!Isn’t it better to learn about correct methods of lighting a gas fire first and to avoid a serious injury? The same goes for your children, they need to be taught so they don’t learn from experience.
Always move away from things that can hurt you!As you develop your safety skills you should develop an automatic response to many common situations that pose a risk. For example, if there is a fire in the fire place - children shouldn’t be allowed to play close to it. If the children move into this area, the response is automatic and with authority, “Kids, you can’t play here!”
Teach for results! You stopped an activity that posed a potential risk. As soon as the kids moved away from the fire place the safety level increased. In a split second you took control of the situation. A follow-up to this action could be a discussion with the kids about why they should not play near the fire place.
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