How Many?!?!? – The most ‘doable’ of the physical safety issues are that of providing adequate space for the number of children, maintaining adult-child ratios, and strictly mandating careful supervision of children. Common sense tells us young children must have ample indoor and outdoor space to move their active bodies because physical movement and manipulative action is how they learn best.When I first began working in early childhood education, (at a private daycare in the 70’s) I more than occasionally had sole supervisory responsibility for between 20 and 30 Twos!!!  

It cannot be said strongly enough – young children MUST be watched constantly.The regulations on adult-child ratios in preschool and child care programs have improved enormously in the past years, and although they can be tedious to follow to the letter on every occasion, they are completely necessary, essential, and crucial.  

It’s easy to say and hard to do, but you have to show you CARE. Many accidents are preventable if the adults responsible use their knowledge of child development and their common sense. Use the CARE system:

• Count the children often.  It takes only minutes to get into mischief that could be troublesome or dangerous.
• Always expect the unexpected.  Young children do not always think of the consequences of their actions and their natural curiosity can move them into unsafe situations. Peas up the nose & legos in their ears!                                                                                                     
• Review resources.  Keep emergency communications ready – easy access to help from 911, poison control, animal control, and the administrative office or nurse.  Keep charts of first aid, CPR, Choking and Universal Precautions posted and available indoors and outdoors and always have a first aid kit handy.                                                  
• Examine the environment carefully and constantly.  Look for obvious dangers and hidden ones like rusty swing chains, splintery uncovered plugs, electrical wires, broken equipment, trash or debris, nonedible plants, and tippable furniture. Less easily handled, is the fact that teachers must set appropriate, firm and consistent limits on unsafe behaviors and must follow the discipline techniques or behavior management system mandated by their program. In the next blog we’ll look at a good system to use.

Just Sayin’ – It may seem silly to write about such obvious safety factors, but I still see some surprising and disappointing things happen in programs of all kinds with children from all kinds of families, so I have no problem reminding my readers of the need for simple common sense safety.

Less easily handled, is the fact that teachers must set appropriate, firm and consistent limits on unsafe behaviors and must follow the discipline techniques or behavior management system mandated by their program. In the next few blogs, we’ll talk about that.

Next Blog: Data About Discipline