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Providing a Safe Yard for Children to Play

The summer months are a time when most all the children are out in the yard. You can’t keep an eye on your children all the time as you have your own work to do. Making your yard a safe environment will give you peace of mind and your children a wonderful place to play. 

What happens in the spring and summer in your lawn? You most likely are starting up the lawn mower, uncovering the pool, planting the garden, and washing the car. To keep accidents from happening it will be important to keep your tools put away, keep the pool locked; keep the gate shut and more. In this article, I am going to tell you a bit about keeping your landscape safe and fun at the same time. 

Walking out your door what are the first things that you notice that you should possibly take care of first? Let us look at the porch or deck. Does your porch or deck need a handrail so the children can’t fall or jump off the porch? Even the smallest of heights, like four or five feet can cause injury to small children. The bigger children are going to jump just to ‘see’ if they really can. Putting up a hand railing of any type is going to be just what you need to protect the children from this problem of falling. 

Along the path on your way to the drive way or to the lawn, do you have loose rocks, jagged edges or edges of concrete that are sticking out and could be harmful to children if they fall? You can easily take care of the edges of concrete, stones or other sharp edges in the lawn by putting soil up against the sides of the edges and then planting flowers. Even if the children run over the flowers or the grass takes a while to grow in and hold this soil, it has to be better than the big jagged edge sticking out and posing a possible problem. 

If you have a car in the yard or driveway that you do not use anymore or that is waiting to be fixed you can prevent problems with this situation. Keep the keys for the car hidden in the house so older children do not get any ‘ideas’ about starting the car or getting in the car. Keep the car locked so children of all ages will not play in the car. Heat in the summer can suffocate the children quickly. Children will play hide and seek and if they are stuck in the trunk of an old car, you might never think to look there. Keeping the car locked will prevent accidents of this type. 

Lawn mowers of all types can be dangerous to children who don’t know not to touch or start a lawn mower. Children are curious. The lawn mower that starts with just the flick of a switch or the turn of a key should be kept in a shed or locked up without the key so children don’t have any type of access. The lawn mower can cut off fingers, feet, hands and cause death. Keep your lawn mower put away when the children are going to be in the yard. 

The pool is supposed to be a fun place in the summer months. During the summer you will need to keep, your pool locked up when you are not outside. Children of all ages can have accidents near the pool. Set rules and make the children stick to them. Never allow children in the pool when you are not outside. Having a gate or fence around the pool will help prevent accidents. Small children can fall in the pool and drown. Bigger kids can try to swim and get tired or have a cramp causing an accident. Prevention is the best method. 

While every person’s back yard is different, you will need to look at your own backyard and ‘fix’ or ‘set rules’ that the children will have to follow while out in the backyard so you can do other things. You might only be going out front to work in the garden, but the child’s mind is always working on overtime with curiosity. 

Some other examples of the things in your yard that could cause problems are: the neighbors dog, your dog, the trees they climb, the fence that opens to the road, the roadway that is right next to your backdoor, sheds, old appliances in the yard, the barbeque, hillsides, streams, water gardens, and so much more. Just use a little precaution in cleaning up and protecting your yard and your summer will be safer!

Visitors comments

Fence Comments By: Julie on 2004-09-24 One very simple way to keep your yard safe. Put up a fence! A fence keeps intruders out, pesky animals and gives you all the privacy you need Â