Safe as houses?
Hey kids, I’m Gavin and I want to talk to you today about safety around the house. How many of you here have younger brothers or sisters? [Response] Over half of you, that’s quite a lot. I’ll bet they get quite annoying sometimes, don’t they? I wouldn’t know because I am the younger brother. Even though they do get quite annoying sometimes, I’m sure that deep down inside, you really do love your younger brothers and sisters, and that you would never want anything bad happening to them. This is why it is important to keep them save and out of trouble.
How many of you here don’t have a helper? [Response] Well, that’s a large number of you. I bet every time your parents are out, you have to look after your baby brother or sister right? It’s pretty hard sometimes isn’t it? Well here are a few suggestions which might make it easier for you.
Firstly, never let your brother or sister near the kitchen on their own. Stay away from the kitchen unless you are getting snacks to eat and drinks. The kitchen is a dangerous, unsafe and bad place to play. Your brother or sister could easily burn, scald or hurt themselves with hot or boiling water, clothes irons or hot oven doors. There are some yucky chemicals kept in the kitchen which aren’t very healthy for you if you drink or inhale it. Don’t forget there’s also a chance your baby sibling could slip and fall over. The kitchen is out of bounds.
If your younger sibling needs to go to the toilet or take a bath, make sure that you go and help them. It is very important, and it will make you look more grown-up too, doing important things around the house. When they are taking a bath, make sure the water is not too hot or they could get hurt ands scalded. Also, be sure to hold them up because it is very easy for them to drown, so don’t play around during bath-time. Finally, never ever let your baby brother or sister go peeking down the toilet incase they fall in. It would be unsafe, unhygienic and very yucky.
Moving away from the toilet issues, the next thing you have to be careful of are the doors. Slamming doors in your brother or sister’s face is a big no-no. Their fingers could get caught and it would be extremely painful.
If any of you have a staircase in the house, you will probably know how dangerous they are, especially for kids under two. The best thing to avoid accidents to keep them away from the stairs and remove any toys or objects blocking the stairs. If not, you or your little brother or sister could turn into Humpty Dumpty and break into many pieces
Talking about taking big falls, it is also a good idea to close any low windows your sibling could climb out of, or remove anything they could climb on to in order to get to the opening.
Did you know that the biggest cause of accidents in homes are from playing with matches? If you have ever tried it and thought it cool, take some advice from the big kids, it’s not cool. You could easily kill yourself and your little baby brother or sister, so remember, keep tem away from those matches and remember the words of Smokey Bear; “Only YOU can stop [house hold] fires!” Don’t forget to keep them away from the medicine cabinet, and remind them often that it ISN’T candy.
Finally, if you are playing outside the house, keep those little kids away from the garage or tool shed, which have a lot of dangerous tools and chemicals.
(P.T.O.)
Now you can go and tell your friends how cool you are and your parents how grown up you are because you know how to look after your baby brother or sister, and yourself.
