Child care

6 ways to prevent drowning

1. Get trained in CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and basic water rescue skills

Parents and community members should learn how to respond in an emergency without putting themselves at risk. Check with your local emergency first responders, lifeguards and swimming clubs or associations, which often offer this kind of training.

2. Keep watch over your children

Don’t rely on other adults or children nearby to keep an eye on children playing in, on or around the water. Being attentive and watching what your little one is doing is one of the best ways to keep them safe. Do not be distracted by your mobile phone or conversation with another person. Be at arm’s reach when a child is in the water. If you lose sight of your child, call for help immediately.

3. Install barriers controlling access to water

If you have a pool, pond, or any other body of water around your home, install a fence around it to prevent children from wandering in unsupervised. Other sources of water such as wells, water containers and cisterns should also be covered to prevent an unintentional fall. Empty buckets, containers and portable pools after use and keep toilet lids, and doors to bath and laundry rooms closed when not in use. If you live in a community with a public water space, speak to your local authorities about having a fence put up to keep everyone safe.

4. Provide safe places away from water

Community daycare centres help to keep pre-school children engaged (and having fun!) while safely away from the water. Check in your local community to learn about what options are available for your child.

5. Teach children swimming and water safety skills

One of the best ways to prevent drowning in school-age children (aged over 6 years) is to make sure they know how to swim. Schools, emergency first responders, lifeguards and swimming clubs or associations often provide swim lessons for children.

6. Have everything you need for bath time

Before placing a young child in the tub have all items at hand so you do not leave the child unsupervised in the water. Empty the tub after use.

Road safety tips for younger children

It’s never too early to start teaching your children about road safety. Here are some road rules to help little ones keep safety top of mind.

1. Traffic is dangerous

Explain to your little one that while cars on the road may be fun to look at, it’s important to keep a safe distance. Try taking your child outside and talking to them about it while you watch cars together. Teach your child that cars have the right of way on the road and cannot see children well due their smaller size.

2. Never go near the road without an adult and always hold hands

Children under 7 years should never go near the road alone and should be on the side of you away from the traffic. Try making up a song or game to remind your little one to hold your hand before crossing the street.

3. Stop, look and listen before crossing the road

Practice on a quiet road together and model the importance of stopping, looking both ways and listening for oncoming traffic before crossing the road the next time you cross together. Even when there is no traffic, it is important to repeat this behaviour.

>> Jump to: How to cross the road safely in 5 steps

4. Wear bright colours

Explain to your little one that bright and reflective clothing helps them to be seen by others in darker lighting or bad weather. To make it fun for them, ask them about their favourite piece of bright clothing or their favourite colour that they could wear the next time you need to go out when there is poor visibility.

5. Practice driveway safety

Road safety is important to practice at home too, as driveways can often be the source of tragic injuries for children. Teach your little ones about the dangers of driveways at home and when out walking, and make sure to look around for your child when entering or leaving your driveway.

When can my child cross the road alone?

All children are different and show different levels of independence at different ages. Letting them cross the road independently can be a tough decision, as you will need to consider their development and what the roads are like where you live. Children are not ready to navigate roads alone until they are fully aware of road safety rules and can put them into practice. They should also be able to judge how fast traffic is moving and how far away it is, so they are able to cross the road safely.

Babies, toddlers and screen time 

In today’s tech and media-driven world, many parents use screens to keep young children entertained or distracted while they juggle other needs. It works. Screens captivate children’s attention in a way almost nothing else does, allowing parents a bit of a breather. But what is the impact of screens on young brains and how much screen time should they be exposed to?   

Brain scientists who study the impact of screens on baby brains don’t have all the answers yet, but what they do know will help parents understand how critical it is to provide off-screen experiences. Only then will children learn, improve their social and cognitive skills and be healthier and happier in the future.   

Babies learn the most from human interaction

Patricia Kuhl is one of the world’s leading brain scientists and runs experiments with more than 4,000 babies each year. “What we’ve discovered is that little babies, under a year old, do not learn from a machine,” she says, pointing to several brain scans on a computer. “Even if you show them captivating videos, the difference in learning is extraordinary. You get genius learning from a live human being, and you get zero learning from a machine.”

Perhaps that is why the World Health Organization recommends no screen time for babies under 2 and no more than one hour of screen time a day for those aged 2 to 4. 

Screens hijack attention spans

For children to be successful, they need to learn how to concentrate and focus. That ability starts to develop during their earliest years when their brains are more sensitive to the environments around them. For a brain to develop and grow, it needs essential stimuli from the outside world. More importantly, they need time to process those stimuli. While reading storybooks out loud gives children time to process words, images and voices, the constant absorption of on-screen images and messages affects their attention span and focus. 

Screens curtail ability to control impulses

Young children need their dose of boredom. It teaches them how to cope with frustration and control their impulses. If young children are constantly being stimulated by screens, they forget how to rely on themselves or others for entertainment. This leads to frustration and hinders imagination and motivation. 

Screens reduce empathy

Research has shown that screen time inhibits young children’s ability to read faces and learn social skills, two key factors needed to develop empathy. Face-to-face interactions are the only way young children learn to understand non-verbal cues and interpret them.

“Until babies develop language,” says Charles Nelson, a Harvard neuroscientist who studies the impact of neglect on children’s brains, “all communication is non-verbal, so they depend heavily on looking at a face and deriving meaning from that face. Is this person happy with me, or are they upset at me?” That two-way interaction between children and adult caregivers is critically important for brain development.

Exposure to screens reduces babies’ ability to read human emotion and control their frustration. It also detracts from activities that help boost their brain power, like play and interacting with other children. But if you have to rely on screens at certain moments, just make sure to control the quality of what they see and engage with them while they’re watching. The benefits of limiting and even eliminating screen time in these early moments will last a lifetime.
 

New babies are a lot of work, and parents experience a wide range of emotions when they have a new baby. They feel joy, frustration, fatigue and nervousness. There's no reason to be frightened of having mixed emotions about a new baby. Hi, I'm Dr. Lisa Damour, and this is my Mini Parenting Masterclass on how to build your baby's mental health.
 

I’m about to become a parent. What should I expect in terms of emotions and stress?

Becoming a parent for the first time is a huge transition. It will change everything you do. Every aspect of your life will be different now. And one of the things that we know about stress is that it happens any time we have to adapt to new conditions. And adapting to a new baby is a new condition. So expect stress. That doesn't mean anything is going wrong. It just means that you're getting used to becoming a parent. And this will get easier with time.
 

At what age should I start thinking about my child’s mental health?

You should start thinking about your child's mental health right from the moment you meet. From the very beginning, your child will look to you for love, learning and safety. When you provide your child a warm and tender relationship, help them to feel protected, comfort them when they're upset and help them navigate the world, that's how you lay the groundwork for a lifetime of mental health.
 

How does stress affect the emotional development of my child?

There's a stress response that gets activated when babies become frightened or they worry that someone has forgotten them or their needs aren't getting met. Our job as parents is to help them to calm that stress response. When that stress response has calmed, everything goes back to normal and your baby actually learns that the world is a safe and reliable place. Some babies don't learn that. They are in stressful situations and they don't have the emotional support that they need to feel calm again. When children are in stressful situations and they don't have a loving adult to help them feel better, that can lay the groundwork for emotional difficulties down the line.
 

How can I learn to show affection and love to my child if I did not grow up with those things myself?

Parenting is hard. It's something that everybody has to learn how to do. And it's something that we can actually do a really good job with if we set our minds to it. There's so much to focus on in becoming a new parent. Here are the things that will make a huge difference and will help make sure that you give your child what you wish you had had yourself: Be attentive to your baby, pay attention to what they need, be responsive to their needs and just make sure you're a warm and steady presence. That will be everything your baby needs to get a great start in life.
 

How can I promote positive mental health in my family?

Decades of research have taught us that what children need are two things: They need home to be warm and they need to feel like people around there like them and they need life at home to be predictable. They need to know what to expect. They need a good sense of structure and reliability around them. So for the warmth part, enjoy your baby, enjoy your child, play with them, talk to them, cuddle them. Doing those things will feel good for your child  and feel good for you, and it actually releases natural hormones that are going to help you bond with your baby.
 

Is it okay for me to show emotions like being angry or sad in front of my children?

You are your child's first teacher and your child's going to learn all about feelings from you. So when you have feelings, especially painful ones, you're going to want to think about how you express them, to express them in a way that is honest but not overwhelming or frightening. And then you're going to want to model how you manage having a painful or difficult feeling, such as finding an appropriate way to cope with it, going outside, taking a walk, reaching out to somebody for support. Here's the most important thing to remember: The definition of mental health is not that you feel calm and relaxed and happy all the time or that your child does. The definition of mental health is having the right feeling at the right time and knowing how to manage it appropriately.
 

What should I do when I feel overwhelmed?

What are some coping techniques for dealing with stress. If you're feeling overwhelmed, you should definitely take time to manage your own stress and there are lots of good ways to cope with stress to help bring it under control. First make sure you've got good social support. Everyone needs somebody to tell their worries to, and a person or a group who helps them to feel connected and accepted. Another thing that can help you if you're feeling really stressed is to find a happy distraction. Sometimes we just need to take a mental vacation. So maybe you want to read a book for a while or go spend time with someone you care about. Just take your mind off of whatever is making you stressed. That will help you reset and feel better. Finally, an important way we take care of ourselves when we’re stressed is to take really good care of our bodies, make sure you're getting enough sleep, eat well and get as much physical activity as you need. Those are the things that you can do that will take good care of you and help you take good care of your baby.