Welcome to another Try This Tuesday. For details on how to participate, please check out the welcome post. If you’d like to join in but aren’t sure what to write about, try the topic suggestion for this week: Safety Awareness.
How are you teaching your child to be safe, whether it is around traffic, water, strangers, or some other area? Are there situations where you have seen your child show he can handle himself well, or things you are still working on?
Our Experience
As much as it pains me to admit it, my son does not really understand many of the common dangers that most kids have a grasp on by his age.
Even though he is able to tell me about certain safety issues that have been talked about at school, like being careful when crossing streets or encountering strangers, I really wouldn’t trust him to pass a real-life test in either subject.
At age seven, I pretty much don’t let him out of my sight or more than an arms’ length away from me, unless he is in someone else’s care, such as at school or church. Whenever I do, I generally regret it because he either isn’t paying attention to where he is going and runs into people or he takes off to look at something interesting without telling me.
Interestingly enough, the topic of safety awareness actually came up last night as I was meeting with some other parents of the boys in Michael’s group therapy session, and the facilitator is planning to pass our concerns on so the psychologist can cover the subject in group.
I am looking forward to hearing what approach she takes, but in the meantime, I did find a few interesting sources of information.
Some Resources
- Safety Tips – Special Needs:Tips on a variety of safety issues related to children with various disabilities from Safe Kids USA.
- Safe and Sound Campaign: This section of the Autism Society of America’s website includes information on Safety in the Home, as well as tips on disaster preparedness and information for first responders such as police and fire departments.
- Developing Personal Safety Skills in Children With Disabilities by Frieda Briggs: From the description, part 1 of this book covers information relevant to the parents and teachers and part 2 includes curriculum ideas and safety skill exercises.
- Autism Life Skills: From Communication and Safety to Self-Esteem and More by Chantal Sicile-Kira: Having read her first book and found it very helpful, I am very interested to pick up a copy of this one for myself as well.
Please join in and share the creative solutions YOU have found to your own challenges, or feel free to post your own challenge for input from others.
Topic Suggestion for Next Week: Nurturing Your Relationships. How do you make the time to connect with other adults and maintain the important relationships in your life?
As the host of Try This Tuesday, Trish shares some of the solutions she has found to make life easier and invites you to do the same. You can also find her blogging at Another Piece of the Puzzle and Autism Interrupted.