How To Teach Your Children About Electrical Safety

As parents, it’s critical to be aware of electrical hazards in your home. Even with the best childproofing in place, accidents can still happen that can range in severity from minimal harm to death.

To help protect your children, we recommend teaching them about electrical safety at a young age to ensure that they understand the dangers of outlets and electricity. 

4 Important Electrical Safety Lessons

When it comes to teaching your children about electrical hazards, there are four key lessons:

1. Outlet Safety

When children are infants, the best protection from outlets is outlet covers. However, once your child is nearing the age of 4, they should begin to learn why these outlets are dangerous and how to properly use them. The first lesson is never to put fingers or objects into an outlet. We also recommend teaching children to ask permission before plugging anything in and how to unplug items safely at the plug, not by simply pulling on cords. 

2. Avoiding Water

Children need to know that water and electricity don’t go together! Many electrical accidents tend to happen near sinks, baths, and toilets. By explaining to your children that water near electricity is dangerous, you can help protect them from electrocution. Remind children not to use anything that plugs in while in the bathtub and to keep all battery-operated devices away from water.

3. Safe Appliance Use

If your child is old enough to use small appliances, it’s time to teach them safe appliance use. Teach children that nothing metal should go in the toaster or microwave and encourage them to ask for help when using any electrical appliances. 

4. The Dangers of Wires & Sparks

Children should know to stay away from any fallen or exposed wires, especially when there are sparks present. Teach your children to stay far away and to be especially aware when playing outdoors and climbing trees near power lines. 

Effective Ways To Teach Your Children About Electrical Safety

There are many great and engaging ways to help teach your children these electrical safety lessons. We recommend:

• Using YouTube videos about electrical safety
• Incorporating fun and educational computer and video games
• Utilizing story time to teach about electrical safety
• Incorporating electrical safety into everyday conversation
• Teaching kids about universal safety, danger, warning signs

By ensuring your children understand basic electrical safety, you can seriously reduce the risk of electrocution in your home and feel more comfortable with your children functioning independently in your home. 

Childproofing Your Home

While education is key, it’s still smart to perform some basic childproofing in your home. This includes securing or covering unused wall outlets, hiding cords behind furniture, under rugs, or by using a cord-hiding device and placing potentially dangerous electrical devices out of reach.

This is important for any home where your child will be spending significant time, so parents should also encourage family and grandparents to do these simple tasks to help protect their children.

Protect Your Children With Electrical Education Today

When it comes to protecting your kids from electrical hazards in your home, education is key. Teach your child basic outlet and appliance safety and ensure that they know to avoid exposed wires and the mixing of water and electricity.

With these simple lessons and some basic childproofing of the home, you can take proactive steps to protect your children from the inherent dangers of electricity.

Start teaching your children about electrical safety today. Call 610-364-5099 for expert electrical services in the Delaware County area.