Back to School Safety Tips

Once your child is big enough to go to school, you worry about their safety while they’re away. This new stage in their lives can be exciting and fun, but it’s important to teach them how to stay safe. Here are a few helpful tips to keep in mind as you’re preparing for your children to go back to school this year:

Book Bag Safety

We don’t often think of book bags when we think of safety, but it’s important to look at the design and size of the bag you purchase for your child. Never choose a book bag that is wider or longer than your child’s torso. Check to be sure it doesn’t hang more than 4 inches below their waist. A child should never carry around a heavy backpack for long periods of time. Consider wheeled backpacks if you have reason to believe your child could experience back pain.

Heat Safety

Families everywhere are enjoying the great outdoors, but dehydration, sunburn and heat stroke are no laughing matter. When you send the kids off to school on a hot day, dress them in light-colored clothing. Make sure they have on sunscreen if necessary.

If you have one child going back to school and another little one who is along for the ride, make sure you always look in the backseat before leaving the vehicle. NHTSA’s “Look Before You Lock” campaign is a great resource for parents looking for advice on how to prevent heatstroke risk. While it seems impossible that you could forget a child in the backseat, you can never be too careful to avoid this kind of accident.

Pedestrian Safety

Show your kids how to stop, look both ways and back, and then step off the sidewalk. Avoid dangers you don’t want them repeating, such as making a dash across a busy street. Instead, make the effort to cross at pedestrian crossings or crosswalks. Find more of our pedestrian safety tips here.

Stranger Safety

Make sure your child knows not to talk to or accept rides from strangers under any circumstance. Also, teach your little one their phone number and address in case of an emergency. You can also run some scenarios by your children to make sure they know the proper response to give to strangers if they are ever approached. Don’t act out anything too scary, but be sure they know the basics of what to do or say.

When you teach your child safety tips before sending them to school, you can rest easy knowing they are protected from harm. Do you have another tip you’d like to share with us? We would love to hear about it on Facebook, so you can help other parents keep their kids safe when it’s time to go back to school.