SAFETY : Crawling Tour of Home Exposes Dangers to Kids

On a recent Friday night, my husband and I sat in the living room catching up on the week’s events. Suddenly we heard our 3 1/2-year old son screaming from his bedroom.

We ran into the room and discovered that he had found my keys and had stuck them in an electrical socket. He was fine, although badly shaken. We consider ourselves cautious parents, but we had become a little more casual about safety issues as our son got older.

“Many parents think that if their children can talk and be articulate, then certainly they will be rational and understand dangers,” said author Vicki Lansky. “But unfortunately that is not the case.”

Lansky wrote “Baby Proofing Basics” (The Book Peddlers of Deephaven, Minn.; $5.95).

In her introduction, Lansky, the author of more than 25 books on parenting, details what types of dangers each age group is most susceptible to.

Lansky points out that some parents may put a 5-year-old in charge of a younger child taking a bath while the parent performs a chore in the house. “Not a good idea,” she said. “The 5-year-old just doesn’t have the attention span. In fact, 5-year-olds need to be closely supervised themselves.”

Drownings, especially in younger children, can occur not only in the bathtub but also in a toilet or even in a bucket of water.

According to Lansky, the most dangerous household object is the telephone. “Parents get on the phone, and the attention is diverted from the child. It just takes a split second, and the trouble begins.”

In the first chapter, “Baby Proofing Room By Room,” Lansky offers this basic advice: “Get down on your hands and knees and crawl around your house to see the dangers.”

She also advises storing all cleaning materials and dangerous substances in their original containers and never in familiar food containers such as milk or juice cartons even though you know they are securely locked up.

“I’m convinced that children have different taste buds from adults. Kids will drink window-washing fluid because they think it looks like Kool-Aid,” she said.

Lansky identifies the kitchen and bathroom as the most dangerous for children. A two-page sketch of the kitchen is included with such tips as: Make glass visible by putting decals on it, use a stove guard and knob covers and keep a memo board for all important numbers.

“There are some wonderful plastic gadgets on the market that can be ordered through catalogues, or they can be purchased in baby stores,” Lansky said. “In fact, parents can do a decent baby-proofing job throughout their entire house for $100.”