Injury Prevention for Five- t... Video Transcript

Participants

Bonnie Boswell , Alan Nager MD

Summary

As children grow out of the toddler years, teaching them to take care of themselves becomes just as important as parental supervision. From riding a bike to crossing the street, your child will be engaging in activities where safety is their responsibility. Join us as we address the main safety issues facing children at this age.

Webcast Transcript

BONNIE BOSEWELL:  Hello, I'm Bonnie Bosewell, and welcome to our Webcast.  Well as children grow out of the toddler years and start spending more time on their own, teaching them take care of themselves becomes just as important as parental supervision.  From riding bikes to crossing the street, your child will be engaging in activities where safety is their responsibility.  Well one of the main safety issues facing children at this age, and what can you do to make sure they're staying safe.

Joining me to discuss injury prevention for five to eight year olds is Dr. Alan Nager.  He is the Director of the Emergency Department at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles.  Thank you so much for being with us to talk about this really interesting age because these kids are a little bit more savvy than they've ever been before.  Describe what it's like for them to understand the rules of behavior that will keep them safe.

ALAN NAGER, MD:  Well this is an interesting age because, contrary to children at younger ages, this is the age range in which children are trying to understand the rules.  They learn by examples.  So if you as a parent are good role models for your children and set concrete, good, wholesome examples, your children will follow those.  Also children are gaining independence; they want to go out there and see what's the real world like.  They might try to get away with things.  They may want to try and impress their peers.  So there are a number of issues which make this age group very complicated, and especially trying to instill safety guidelines or rules for them.

BONNIE BOSEWELL:  So they're risk takers at this point.  And what about their judgment at this point?

ALAN NAGER, MD:  Their judgment is really questionable. Kids have difficulty judging and perceiving sounds, distances, sort of those concrete things in our environment which make their world very complicated.  Those perceptions ultimately may make them make bad choices, ultimately causing accidents.

BONNIE BOSEWELL:  Okay, well that becomes particularly important in just their everyday life.  For example, crossing the street.  Let's talk about some of the things that happen to kids just being on the street.  What kinds of things do you find typical that will happen to kids as they're learning these rules in the street?

ALAN NAGER, MD:  Well our emergency department is jam packed full of concrete examples and the kinds of injuries we see on a daily basis.  We see kids crossing the street without looking.  We see kids making playgrounds out of streets.  We see a number of, for instance, scooter injuries in which kids cross the street on their scooter.  They have isolated a particular area of the street or parking lot into their own, or their so-called own play area.  And it eventually leads to disaster.  We see kids every week who come in after getting hit by cars, having cars back into them, riding bikes into parking lots.  Those kinds of things all lead to disaster.

BONNIE BOSEWELL:  Well what's a parent to do?  For example, my child, who I've always told, you know, look both ways before you cross the street.  And he goes, "Yeah Mom, I know."  And then right away he goes out.  And I really don't have the sense that he's got it.  I mean he tells me he has it.  And I know he's heard it.  But he doesn't really get it.