As a parent, do you often worry about your children getting hurt? It’s ingrained in you. When they were babies, you worried about everything they put in their mouths. As toddlers, you followed them around while they learned to walk. When they first got on a bike, you helped them balance, bought them a helmet and gave them as much support as you could.
While injuries can happen in many ways — playing sports, roughhousing on the playground, walking down a set of stairs in the snow — there is one clear No. 1 cause. If you want to keep your kids safe, you need to know what it is. Per the National Institutes of Health, the No 1. cause is car accidents.
There are things parents can do to help keep children safe. It starts with the proper use of car seats and booster seats. Parents need to know when the kids have to ride in the back seat and which direction they need to face. They also need to create a culture of safety, always telling children to wear their seat belts and leading by example. Some experts note that about 75% of car seats get installed in the wrong manner, so parents just need to take the time to do everything properly.
Unfortunately, though, some of the risk is out of your hands. You can’t always protect your children and other drivers may put them in very real danger. If they get injured and wind up in the hospital, make sure you know exactly what legal rights you have.