Safety tips for adventurous kids

Hi y'all!

Summer is here, well in a few days at least, and with summer comes different challenges and adventures. If your kids are like mine this means lots of outside time, whether that be at the pool, the backyard or a local park. My children love to explore and challenge me in these months and sometimes it's a little overwhelming but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Safety comes to mind. Because, in all the new adventures, I want to make sure my little ones can keep going. And I'm not perfect at it and we've had our share of ER trips and poison control calls through the years. But most of the time we manage to keep our heads at least afloat.

So here are five summer safety tips that have helped us out.

1. Know your environment. Look and see what the kids might try to explore and check and see if there are any red flags that should be of limits or at least only exlpored with and adult. Sometimes this can be in a house too, especially if it's an older house, lead paint fixtures and areas are definitely red flags to be avoided. We had this happen with a back porch of ours and since then, it's been an off the limits zone until the porch is sealed off from its toxins. 

2. Keep hydrated. I know it's been said a million times but we've been caught it with signs of heat exhaustion and having water nearby helped us tremendously. We usually pack a Nalgene bottle or two full of water, but have in the past or for more extreme outings have used Camelbaks. 

3. Minimize sun damage. We all know that we actually need to get some sun exposure for our bodies to soak up some vitamin D, but we don't need to be overexposed.  Too much sun leads to burns etc, and so one either chooses to cover up or put on sunscreen.  My sunscreen hating kids usually will choose to cover up with a hat and long sleeves over sunscreen, but in places like the beach or the pool sunscreen is a must and they withstand it for those kinds.  As for sun hats we like our wide rimmed boat hats like these from Sun Protection Zone.

4. Be smart with bike safety.  My boys enjoy riding their bikes so much, but we have a few rules for safety that they must follow when doing so.  First, they must have a helmet, and they must be wearing closed toed shoes.  We are fan of Safety Town programs or setups too, this helps a kid get acclimated to the rules of the road as a biker and helps them to be cautious when riding their bike around.

5. The only go up if you can get down rule.  My kids are climbers, but I really try to emphasize the prior concept to keep them safe.  If they can't get down from somewhere without help, then they probably shouldn't try to go up it.  I honestly think this keeps them safe and also builds confidence because if my child has gotten up somewhere I'm not apt to take them down, he has to figure it out himself. Granted if its a red flag zone in the first place, well, down they go and that's another issue all in itself.

Bonus safety tip: The patron Saint for Safety is St. Barbara, so if you want to have some extra help to keep your family safe, asking for the intercession of this lady is right up your alley.

Hope this helps you to have a safe and adventure filled summer!