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Safety Rules for Children Who Stay Home Alone

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Safety Rules for Children Who Stay Home Alone

If you've decided to go forward with self-care, you'll need to give your child some basic training. Take a tour of your house together. Make sure your child can lock and unlock the doors and windows. If he's allowed to operate certain appliances, make sure he knows how. The same goes for adjusting the temperature on the thermostat.

Put a first-aid kit in a handy location such as the kitchen and teach him some basics: how to stop bleeding from a cut and deal with a minor burn, for example. The kitchen also is a good place to keep a flashlight, batteries, and battery-powered radio in case there is a power outage due to a storm. Tell him not to light candles. Teach him where to go if the storm becomes severe: maybe it's the basement or on the ground floor under a piece of sturdy furniture.

Gadget Guide

A keypad door lock eliminates the hassle of keeping track of keys. Then the only question is whether your child can remember which numbers to push!

Safety Savvy

The start of self-care is a good time to do another home safety survey. Check each room and your yard for hazards you might not have noticed before—anything from frayed appliance cords and loose area rugs to broken glass in the back storm door. It's bad enough when a child gets hurt, but worse when he has to cope with an injury alone.

Make sure your child knows how to call 911. Post your work numbers and those of neighbors he could call for help. Write your home address and phone number on the list, too, so he won't forget them in a moment of panic. Make sure he always has change so he can call you from a pay phone in a pinch, such as if he's locked out and can't find a neighbor.

Leave a spare set of keys with more than one neighbor in case he loses his. Don't hide one outside your house—burglars know all the places to look! And don't put your name or address on your child's key or key chain. This makes it easier for a person who finds it to break into your home. Have him wear the key on a chain around his neck or on a chain threaded through his belt loop. Tell him to keep it hidden under his shirt or in his pants pocket.

Fires: How to Get out Alive

Go over what your child should do in case of a fire. Have a fire drill and practice different escape routes. If you live in a house with a second story, it's a good idea to have a rope ladder in case a fire should block the stairway. If you live in an apartment building, remind your child that in case of fire he should exit by the stairs and not in the elevator.

Stress that if there's a fire, he should leave the house immediately, and go to a neighbor to call for help. The same rule applies if he smells gas. Unless a fire is very minor, such as in a pot on the stove that can easily be smothered with a lid, your child should not try to put it out himself.

Cooking food left unattended is a major cause of house fires. For that reason you might be wise to prohibit your child from using the stove, at least initially. Since microwaves do not have open flames and they shut off automatically, this is a somewhat safer cooking alternative as long as your child has been well trained in its proper use, especially the rule about not putting metal utensils in it.

Space heaters are another high-risk appliance and should not be used by children in self-care.

Teach him to stop, drop, and roll on the ground to put out the flames if his clothes should catch on fire. If rooms are smoky, he should crawl on his hands and knees to escape. If he's behind a closed door, he should feel it to see if it's hot before opening it.

Gadget Guide

Fire extinguishers can be difficult for a child to use and any delay during a fire could be dangerous. Teach him to leave the house instead of playing firefighter. Kitchens can be replaced; kids can't.

Caution in the Kitchen

A session on kitchen safety is a must for kids who will be making their own snacks and who might eventually progress to starting dinner before you get home. Here are some of the things your child should know:

• Keep handles on pots on the stove turned to the inside.
• Avoid wearing loose clothing—especially big sleeves—around the stove.
• Use a wooden spoon to stir hot foods instead of a metal one which can become hot.
• Point knife blades down and away from you, never toward your fingers.
• When using a vegetable peeler, scrape away from the body.
• To take something out of the oven, use oven mitts or pot holders to pull the rack out first, and then lift the dish.
• To avoid falls, clean up spills on the floor immediately.
• Concentrate when you cook. Don't get distracted while cutting with a knife or wander off to watch TV when something is cooking on the stove.

If your child will be using a microwave oven, it's safest if the oven is placed no higher than his eye level. Ovens installed higher, such as above the stove top, make it easy for kids to spill hot foods on themselves when they are lifting from overhead. Also, remind your child to be careful when removing dish covers or opening popcorn popped in bags because hot steam can escape and burn him. Tell him to use oven mitts and open hot dishes away from his face.

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Gadget Guide

A sharp knife actually is safer than a dull one, which might cause your child to struggle harder when he's cutting something. A safer alternative is kitchen scissors, which work for soft cutting jobs—everything from pizza to canned tomatoes. Don't let your child use sharp knives when you aren't home unless he has had a lot of experience using them safely.

Gadget Guide

A peephole in the front door lets your child see who is outside without having to unlock the door. If you don't have a peephole (and there's not a curtained window near the front door that serves the same purpose) consider installing one.

Safety Savvy

If you don't already own a dog, now might be the time to think about getting one. Some kids in self-care like the company of a pet, and dogs also provide an extra measure of protection against intruders.

Avoiding Strangers

It's probably a common occurrence for strangers to phone your house or knock on your door. Usually none of them means any harm, but a child home alone cannot take chances.

While she's in the house, your child should keep the doors and windows locked. It's a good idea to keep ground floor curtains closed, too, so strangers can't peer inside. If someone knocks, your child should find out who it is and only open the door if it's someone she knows.

If a stranger comes to the door, your child should not let that person in under any circumstances. Some kids have trouble following this rule because they're tempted to trust their instincts instead.

For example, if a delivery person says he has a package for the child's father and she must sign for it, she might think that's safe, but it's safer to tell the stranger that her dad can't come to the door right now and to come back later. If a stranger says she needs to use the phone because there's been an accident, a child's natural inclination is to be helpful. Instead, she should summon a neighbor by phone, or place a 911 call for the stranger instead of letting her inside.

Tell your child that if she doesn't recognize the person at the door, she has the option of simply not answering it or talking through the door.

Don't schedule deliveries or repair people to come to your home when you aren't there. It's too much responsibility for a child, and it means they have to break the rule about not letting in strangers.

Phone calls are tricky, too. Some kids feel they are lying when they say “My parents can't come to the phone right now” when the parents aren't at home. Assure them that the statement is literally true. They can offer to take a message and tell the caller that the parents will return the call soon. They also shouldn't give out personal information on the phone, such as their names. Some children avoid the problem of answering calls from strangers by screening callers with an answering machine or with a caller ID feature on the phone.

If the unthinkable happens, and your child hears someone trying to break into your home, she should escape out another door and run for help. If escape isn't possible, the next option is for her to lock herself in a room, preferably with a phone, and dial 911. If possible, she should stay on the phone until help arrives; if not, she should still leave the phone off the hook after calling 911 because the emergency operator may be able to trace the call and send police to the right address.

Since situations involving strangers are many and varied, it's a good idea to do some role-playing with your child. Practice phone calls in which you try to get information from her and she learns how to respond. Do the same with visitors at the door. Your child will be more confident if she has practiced what to say.

If your child walks home from school, she also should be well versed in avoiding stranger danger on the street. For more information on this and other aspects of personal safety, see Early Lessons About Personal Safety, and /kids/childhood-safety/teaching-your-kids-street-smarts. Chapter 25, “It's My Body: Personal Safety.”-->