Whether they're taking care of your child on a regular basis or planning for your next visit, your parents want to keep their grandchildren safe and sound.
Here's how you can make it easier for them:
- Give your parents and in-laws copies of critical phone numbers (your child's health care provider, the hospital emergency room, the poison control center) to keep by every phone in the house. That way, when your child is visiting, they can contact help quickly in an emergency.
- When you visit their home, get down on your hands and knees and take a look. Seeing a room from a child's perspective will help all of you identify possible hazards more efficiently.
- Help them childproof their house. Grandparents should never underestimate their grandchild's ability to climb, explore, and move furniture to reach something high up. When your parents were raising you, the traditional strategy was to keep a close eye on a child. But these days, experts put a lot more emphasis on changing a child's environment to make it safe. This new approach has cut the childhood accident rate by one-half to three-quarters in the last 20 years, so it's obviously working.
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more safety tips and ideas you can share with your child's grandparents.
