Wednesday, June 9, 2010

belted.

More healthy habits from a presentation I wrote.

Habit # 7 -- Teach your kids to wear safety belts.

Child safety seats and belts are referred to as the "wonder drugs" when it comes to saving the lives of children. "If seat belts were medicine, they'd be wonder drugs," says Chuck Hurley, spokesperson for the National Safety Council. "Instead they're like aspirin--so common that people forget how beneficial they are in preventing death and serious injuries."
Nevertheless, too many parents give in to the complaining and resistance from their children and drive without having them buckled into their seats. Six out of every 10 children killed in crashes are unrestrained by either seat belts or child safety seats. In 1997 an 1,244 of the 2,087 children under age 16 killed in crashes were completely unrestrained. In this day and age, there are still parents out there who neglect to put their kids in safety belts. I cannot fathom why anyone driving a car would do this. Additionally, developing the habit of safety will run as a theme in everything you do together. When safety is a habit, that’s a good thing.

There should be some wildly disproportionate penalty for parents who don't seat belt their kids. Public shaming, hot-foot, something. It's just unreal that some parents don't do this.

1 comment:

Spockgirl said...

Thanks for posting a comment on my blog, and for "getting it". I gathered that if you had time to look at my blog that you must have also posted on yours, so here I am. I took a look at your website as well. Great work you do. Also, your tips are great. I see these all as common sense, but as a non-parent, I am almost forbidden from saying anything about parenting to parents, as I don't know what it's like.