Seven Steps to Keeping Your Family Safe with Safe Kids Day

About 73% of car seats are not installed correctly. 

Every two weeks, a child dies from a television or furniture tip-over. 

When a young child dies from a residential fire, a smoke alarm is usually either not present or not working because of dead or missing batteries. 

Every 8 minutes a child goes to the ER for medicine poisoning, and almost 9 times out of 10, the medicine belongs to an adult. 

Unintentional injuries is the number one cause of of death to children in the United States. In fact, throughout the world, almost one million children die of an in jury each year, and every one of those tragedies could have been prevented. 

To say that these statistics* are alarming is a huge understatement. That's why I jumped at the opportunity to attend Safe Kids Day at Highline Stages in Chelsea, NYC when Aiden and I were invited last weekend. The carnival themed event including lots of interactive games to help teach kids all about safety. Aiden really enjoyed the imagination playground, the ball pit in which he had to put on his life jacket before entering into the "swimming pool," and the ring toss.

He also enjoyed playing a game of basketball, face painting, riding the fire truck, getting fitted for a new helmet, and the simulated driving area in which he "drove" in a real Chevrolet. After trying out each station and learning how to be safe in each station, he received a stamp of approval. After five stamps, he got to visit the Toy Booth and pick a prize! Score! 

Then, we headed outside to visit the trucks: The fire truck and the food trucks. And we learned what heaven is all about when we tasted the delicious grilled cheese sandwich with bacon. Bacon! It was so good that we went back for seconds! Afterwards, we visited the dessert truck and I had a red velvet ice cream cookie. Guys, when I tell y'all that I was in dessert heaven...

Aiden played it safe with plain 'ol sorbet. It's all good though. I'll teach him what great desserts are made of soon enough.

Safe Kids Worldwide hosted the event. The organization is dedicated to protecting kids from unintentional injuries, and since 1988 has helped to reduce to United States childhood death rate from unintentional injury by 55%.

At the event, they provided us with seven easy tips to help us keep our families safer, and, because I love you, I'm going to share the goodness:

1. Tug on your kid's car seat where the seat belt goes. If it moves more than 1" at the base, tighten it up. 
2. Secure furniture and TV's. Mount flat screens and keep bulky-style TV's on a low and stable base, or recycle them. 
3. Check smoke and CO alarms monthly. Replace devices every 10 years. Replace batteries at least once a year. (I always use this rule of thumb: replace batteries whenever you change your clocks to "fall back" or "spring forward.")
4. Scan your home for places kids can get into medicine. It is pills in purses, vitamins on counters and medicine in daily reminder boxes that curious kids get into. 
5. Check around your house for coin-sized button batteries. 
6. Ask your kid's coaches if they have had concussion or sports safety training. 
7. Take action against distraction! No texting while driving, crossing the street, or pushing the stroller! 

Thanks so much to Safe Kids Worldwide for such a great event. Not only did we learn a lot, but we had so much fun! 

{I received tickets to the Safe Kids Event in order to facilitate this post. Event attendees received a gift bag. All opinions expressed herein are my own.}

*Statistics provided by Safe Kids Worldwide. Visit the website for more information.