"Grandchild-Proof" Your Home

Staff Writer

Part 1 of a 2-Part Series

Home safety should be a top priority for every senior. And if you are lucky enough to have grandchildren—or great-grandchildren—an extra set of precautions should be on your list.

Grandchildren are one of the big advantages of growing older! You may have heard the old joke: “If I knew grandchildren were going to be this fun, I would have had them first.”

Maybe your grandchildren live nearby, and you often fill in as a babysitter. Or perhaps grandkids live at a distance, and visits are an eagerly awaited special event. Either way, when grandchildren are in your home or the home of older loved ones, you want them to be safe…and you want to be able to enjoy their visits without worry.

Your concern is justified. According to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission, each year 2.5 million children are seriously injured—sometimes even fatally—by hazards in the home. Most of these accidents were preventable! Read on for a quick refresher course in childproofing your home, including some information that may be new to you if it’s been a while since you scrutinized your home for things curious little hands could get into.

A few things to remember:

Child safety precautions may seem more stringent. Health and safety experts continue to refine ideas about keeping children safe. For example, toy safety regulations are much more strict than they used to be. Read labels to be sure toys are safe for the age of the child. And if you’ve saved treasured playthings from when your children were young, or picked up fun-looking items at a garage sale, inspect them carefully to be sure they contain no small parts that could cause choking (smaller than two inches in diameter), sharp edges, or materials that could break into pieces. Some heirloom toys are best kept on display—out of reach.

Outdated safety equipment may be UNsafe. Many child safety devices have been continually improved and upgraded. For example, the evolution of the child car seat alone would make quite a story! Remember the pre-seatbelt days when kids crawled all over the back seat during family trips? And those car seats with a toy steering wheel that hung unanchored over the back of the seat? Since then, child car seats have been continually improved, so that even a decade-old car seat is probably not state-of-the art. The same goes for home safety equipment. For example, the common flat plastic outlet protector could fit in a small child’s mouth—a choking hazard. The same goes for safety gates: a child’s neck could get caught in the old scissor-style gate. Hand-me-down or garage sale equipment may not provide an acceptable degree of protection.

Our homes have changed over the past few decades. The homes of today are likely to have exercise equipment, hot tubs, home offices with computers, and other relatively recent features requiring a new set of precautions. Computers, for example, are often placed on the floor within reach, and heavy monitors can be pulled down by the cord.

Give your home a room-by-room “grandchild-proofing” inspection before the next visit. Check out the July issue of Caring Right at Home for a handy “grandchild-proofing” inspection checklist!

For More Information…

U.S. Product Safety Commission. Includes a downloadable brochure describing clever safety devices, and the brochure "A Grandparents’ Guide for Family Nurturing and Safety."

American Academy of Pediatrics. Information on car seats, childproofing, products.

Juvenile Products Manufacturing Association. Consumer information for choosing safe toys and equipment for children.

National Safety Council. Offers information and fact sheets about many home safety-related topics.