Skills to Teach Your Child in Case of an Emergency

As a parent, you’re always thinking about what you would do if faced with an emergency that threatens the health and safety of your child – which is why is can be difficult to consider a situation where they might be the one caring for somebody else. If your child is ever faced with a medical emergency, these three skills can come in handy…

How to call for emergency services

Calling for the police, ambulance or fire brigade is one of the simplest and most important skills your child can have. To ensure that they know when and how to do this, you should teach them the following information:

·         The number for emergency services in your country.
·         How to work a landline or mobile phone.
·         The appropriate situation in which to call for emergency services.
·         How to communicate the reason for the call – such as ‘my mum isn’t waking up’ or ‘my dad fell down and can’t get back up’ – along with their full name and location.

Children as young as 3 years old can understand this information, making it a crucial skill to teach your child.

Basic first aid

Teaching your child to perform basic first aid treatments can not only increase overall safety, but it can also help them to feel confident in their abilities if these situations ever do arise. Skills such as dressing a wound, stopping bleeding and managing broken bones can become useful if they, a friend or a family member are ever suffering from these ailments.

How to identify an emergency

Of course, all this information is useless if your child is unable to recognise when a situation warrants an emergency response. Using terms and examples that they understand, it’s important to describe situations where they should call an ambulance or administer first aid. This could be as simple as telling them that if someone isn’t waking up, has fallen and can’t move or if they suddenly cannot communicate normally and have decreased function throughout their body, it’s time to get some help. You know your child better than anyone, so it’s up to you to decide the best way to help them understand the definition of an emergency.​