How to Teach Your Children Emergency Techniques
The Importance of First Aid and CPR
It is imperative that I stress the importance of teaching your children emergency techniques. Every child has the ability to save another human life. Ask yourself one question... would you help someone who was dying in front of you? If you answered yes, then chances are your child will also have that same reaction and they will try to help anyway, don't you want them to be able to do it right?
How to Teach Emergency Techniques: Safety
Although your children will want to help others in serious situations you must first take the time to explain safety precautions. For instance, it would be heartbreaking if your child rushes to aid a person who is covered in blood as this can potentially be a hazard -this is how aids, hepatitis and many other serious illnesses transfer. Your child might make the ultimate sacrifice, his/her life.
Now, this should not scare you away from the idea... education is the way to protect them not fear. By explaining the dangers and the safeguards you can prepare your child for the actions necessary in order to keep them safe and help save another person's life at the same time.
The first thing to do is teach your children about these and other illnesses that come from infected blood and make sure that they know not to touch exposed (bloody) areas. At this point calling for help is the best bet considering most children do not carry rubber gloves in their pocket. The children should, however, stay with that person and keep talking to them, which might make all the difference until paramedics can arrive.
If the person is unconscious and there is no blood, or very little, it is important for children to know NOT to try and move the body at all. Again calling for help is the best bet, and then they should stay and talk to the person until help arrives. Teaching children of the damage they could accidentally do to a person by lifting their head or moving their limbs is very important. But, it is also important to give examples of when it would be okay to move them like a life threatening situation.
For example, if your children were playing with their friends and they were riding their bikes across the railroad tracks. One child gets his tire caught, this causes a wreck and he falls unconscious when his head hits the rail. This is obviously a time when moving the person is a good thing... if he is not moved a train will kill him.
It is mandatory that when you teach emergency techniques to children you take the time to produce logical and reality based problems then explain the appropriate ways to deal with them. They do not have the experience to automatically know these things.
How to Teach Emergency Techniques: CPR & Choking
It is wonderful to learn CPR and teach your children how to administer the right procedure to the right sized individuals. Because there are different actions for babies, children and adults your children should know them all. There are also different methods like 'mouth to nose' and 'mouth to mouth'.
Children should also be able to identify when a person is choking and how to give an abdominal thrust. This can be very helpful when children eat and play together. Children love to play around while eating, this is a fact of life... especially boys. By having a child in the group that knows how to identify and execute life saving maneuvers like these you could lower the risk of this type of common tragedy occurring in your life.
How to Teach Emergency Techniques: Resources
By attending CPR courses and becoming a highly trained individual your job of teaching your children can be relatively easy. If you have already attended life saving instruction classes but need a refresher course there are books available in your public library that you can check out to help teach your children. There are also tons of resources online if you would rather use your computer instead.
Remember, preventative measures and education are absolutely necessary in order to avoid deadly disasters.
Published by Manda Spring
Manda Spring is a published author of books, screenplays, advertisements, and articles (in print magazines and online). View profile
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