Five Fabulous Safety Facts your five year old should know RIGHT NOW

When it comes to talking about safety to your preschooler, it can feel like you are trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.  Nothing seems to be quite sticking.

Fear not, there are five safety facts that you can teach your child that are easy, non scary and fun.  If you stick to these simple strategies it will make safety talks with your child effective and fun!

Keep It Simple: Safety conversations should be no longer than about 20 seconds. 

Repeat… often: Bring up one safety tip or expectation each day with your child.

Plan it: chose a time each day to talk about safety.  Bedtime, dinnertime, in the car.  A planned time to talk about safety will help you remember to talk about safety and it will create a space each day for your kids to come and talk to you about concerns.

Don’t be scary! Using scare tactics with kids, when it comes to safety, is not effective in teaching them about how to be safe and ultimately it will probably make you lose credibility with your kids when your scary predictions about the boogey man in waiting to get them in the bushes, probably won’t happen.

Five Facts for Five year olds

1.  If you are lost, find a mom with kids. – practice this with your child the next time you are out and about. Have them point out moms that they could go to if they thought they were lost.
2. Bathing suit areas are private. Remind your child that their bathing suit areas are private and so are other people’s bathing suit areas.
3. Talk about the “Un-Oh” feeling. Let you child know that it is normal when they get that little butterfly feeling in their tummy and they need to let a grown up know when they feel that way.
4. Practice the “Check in”.  When you are at the park next time, remind your child to “check in” with you before they wander off or go visit someone at the park (whether they know the person or not).

 But the most important fact that your child needs to know is…

 5.   They are special and have the right to be safe.

A child who enters each day with that knowledge is going to be a harder target for crime.