Keeping The Kiddos Safe Around Power Tools
One of the scary worlds to navigate as a parent is how to use power tools around your children.
Young kids are fascinated by everything they see, especially if it is something that mom or dad is fully engrossed in.
Compounding this concern is that often, by the time we get around to a project, we are in full emergency repair mode. It's always the sink that is gushing water or the front door that is refusing to shut.
It is in these moments that we are working as quickly as we can, and might not be as closely attuned to safety precautions.
Sure, we're not looking to endanger anyone, and we're not careless. However, little children's curiosity will challenge the strongest safety precautions. There is no fence high enough and no barrier strong enough to prevent the curiosity of a determined child.
With that in mind, here are some suggestions on how to keep your family safe while tackling those home projects.
Demonstrate Safety
"Helmet? We never wore helmets when I was a kid!"
It seems as though each generation has the prerogative to explain to the next about how dangerously they used to live.
Your family is going to have to break that tendency.
As a parent, your children should always see you donning the safety goggles, dust mask, and work gloves. This will help them understand the importance of these safety features, and help them gain a concept of how dangerous these tools are.
This is particularly important to keep in mind when working with electrical equipment as it is vital that you take steps to protect your hands. Moreover, you can find a fantastic range of reusable gloves on the Unigloves website here: https://unigloves.co.uk/reusable-gloves/sibille-safe/summary/
After all, if mom has to put on funny glasses and gloves in order to run the power tools, then these tools must be very scary!
The other benefit is that if a child wishes to emulate their parent and play with the power tools, they will also likely put the safety gear on, first, buying you more time to intervene!
Invest in Good Tools
Good tools feel like such as luxury. If a lug nut wrench will remove your car tires, why would you invest in an impact wrench?
After all, you need those dollars for diapers!
After you buy a few good-quality tools, you discover how much faster you can work. Tasks that used to require you to work on them for hours with tools strewn all over the place can now be completed in a half-hour with the right tools.
A few minutes shopping for a good impact wrench (https://tooltally.com/best-air-impact-wrench has some good ones) means that you can remove your lug nuts in 30 seconds, shortening the time that your car has to be perched on jacks.
Unplug All Tools
Unplugging your tools while you are working might be one of the hardest disciplines to practice.
You absolutely must unplug every tool between cuts.
It makes perfect sense to unplug the tool if you are going to walk away. However, you need to start unplugging them every time you set the tool down.
As you know, kids are ninjas when it comes to sneaking behind mom and dad's back. With the habit of frequently unplugging your power tools, you can guarantee that they are going to grab a dead tool.
Furthermore, the ubiquity of cordless tools means that you can easily remove the battery and slip it into your pocket or set it high above their reach.
Use Childproof Locks
Most of us are pretty good about adding cabinet locks to the cleaning chemicals cabinet.
After you use the power tools, you'll want to extend those same protections to the tools.
What before was just a boring device on the garage shelf, is now an intriguing plaything. They are now aware of the tool's existence and power.
Whereas ignorance helped to protect your kids before, now you will want to use a physical barrier to keep your kids safe.
Practice Boundaries
Life will always have boundaries, and finding fun ways to teach these principles to your kids is always worth the time investment.
Some good examples of this are games like Red Rover and Follow The Leader.
Teaching the kids to control themselves around treats is a massive skill. Leave a treat on the table in the reach and make sure they know about it.
Then, distract them with some other activity and deny the treat for progressively longer periods of time.
As kids get older, they can begin to learn that treats come after work. For example, we love saying that we are going to do something fun, such as going to the pool or baking cookies together. However, we'll have 2 hours of work to do, first, and the family joins together to the chores while listening to fun music.
Scientific studies have shown that children who can delay their gratification have a much higher chance of being successful as adults.
The other thing we'll do in our household is to teach our kiddos how to play in one spot by themselves. It starts off when they can crawl. We'll set them on a blanket with some toys, and sit nearby. Anytime they get off the blanket, we pick them up and set them back in the middle.
It starts off slowly with only 5 minutes for the first week. After several months of practice, even the babies are able to play happily for 30 minutes at ta time.
While this type of training is essential, it is just a first line of defense in protecting our kids. It doesn't negate the need to have safe practice and to emphasize to our children just how dangerous these tools are.A Healthy Respect For Tools
In time, you can start teaching them how to use a hammer or a screwdriver. Even then, they should follow proper procedures and use protective gear.
Hopefully, with the right amount of careful training, your house will be filled with completed improvement projects and children who have happy memories of working with mom and dad.
Plus, they'll take those lessons that you taught them and pass them on to their kids. Your next home improvement project forms the basis for generational learning.
