Guard a Kid

Halloween is a time that many children anticipate for weeks to come.  While children look forward to it, some parents begin to feel anxious.  There are some safety precautions you should consider for Halloween safety.

Keep Your Kids Close

With masks and costumes making it difficult to keep tabs on your children, it is important that you keep them as close as possible.  You may consider blinkers or distance monitors to keep tabs on where your child is.  It takes only a few seconds for a child to go missing.  Parents and guardians can have their attention easily diverted during the holiday and that is why a little extra due diligence is needed.

Know Where You are Trick-or-Treating

Many malls, villages, towns and cities offer “safe Halloween” events where kids can get treats from local businesses, rather than knocking on the doors of strangers.  It is a good idea to try to find these events and enjoy a safer Halloween with your child.

If you are going to visit homes in your area, make sure you are familiar with the homes and try to avoid having your children knock on the door of too many strangers.  Even with you close by there is some potential threat to your children.

Check the Candy

You should examine all the candy before allowing your child to eat it.  if there is any candy that looks questionable (torn wrappers, holes in wrappers, homemade, homemade packaging, etc) you should consider discarding it.

Also, if your child has any food allergies make sure you read the wrappers carefully.  It is common for kids to get treats that they have never seen before.  Some of these treats will have nuts, gluten and other ingredients that some children are allergic to.

As Darkness Falls, Risks Increase

The darker it gets, the higher the risk factor is.  Use extra caution as the sun goes down and keep a closer eye on your children.  Typically it is best to have a parent or guardian, rather than an older child take your child out trick-or-treating.

The holiday is a fun time and can be enjoyed with minimal risks if you take some extra precautions.  Child safety must be something you focus on 365 days per year.

How often should you update your child’s identification kit?  This is  a question we are asked often.  At the very least you want to update it every year.  Think about how much your child grows in a year and how different they look.

Child identification kits include the child’s photograph, fingerprints, height and weight among other information.  Within the course of a year your child’s height and weight will change dramatically.  Most parents feel confident that they can estimate that information, however, even in relaxed situations parents are often well-off in their estimates.

At a recent child identification event in Florida, one of our franchisees compared the height and weight information provided by parents to the actual information (height and weight measurements are taken at child identification kit events).  The franchisee reported that over 70% of the parents that filled in that information provided incorrect information.  This, of course, does not make them bad parents, it simply illustrates the fact that it is very difficult to estimate that information.

In a case of an emergency, parents will be stressed and will be even less likely to have accurate information on hand.  An updated child identification kit can provide the details needed quickly and efficiently.

Make sure your child identification kit is updated every 6 or 12 months.

Guard-A-Kid, based in Miami Florida, takes the safety of your children as seriously as you do.  Our entire team including our global franchisees know the importance of child safety.  All of our products and programs are designed with child safety in mind.

This blog is dedicated to providing you with information regarding child safety including the newest child safety products, child identification products, amber alerts, child predator information and other news that can help you keep your child safer.

We invite you to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.  We ask that you participate in our Facebook group and blog and share important information and resources.  It is impossible for us to check every resource mentioned by our visitors and Facebook followers, we ask that everyone exercise caution and note where the information is being provided and by whom.

It is our sincere hope that this blog and our other resources will provide information vital to keeping all children safe.