The Importance of Children Learning First Aid



In addition to keeping children safe at play, at home and in public places, and teaching them to take a pro-active role from potential exploitation or harm, it’s important for parents and teachers to teach children basic first aid. Children need to be able to deal with any situation that arises. There are many types of resources for teaching first aid to children, such as books and on-line resources.

Children need to be taught to remain calm and not panic in emergency situations that may involve the need for first aid. It’s also very important to provide children with emergency contact information. This is something that is also stressed my award-winning child stranger safety book, What Would You Do? A Kid’s Guide to Staying Safe in a World of Strangers.

Parents should also teach their children how to properly stock an adequate first aid kit and demonstrate to them how to use each thing in it. Children should learn to clean and bandage surface wounds and to activate the emergency ice pack to use it to treat sprains or swellings. Children should also learn how to remove splinters with tweezers.

Many of these things can be taught to children by parents and teachers. Children can also learn such things from first aid books written for children. There are also first aid courses available to children, such as those offered through the Red Cross.

To learn more about how children can learn first aid and about resources to teach it to them read my web article, “First Aid Training for Children” at http://melissa-ridenour.suite101.com/first-aid-training-for-children-a307071.

* Picture credit: Ics9