When home is a working farm, keeping kids safe is uniquely challenging
Sep
16
Written by:
16/09/2010 8:37 AM
Most of us live in urban centres, rarely venturing out to the country to visit farms and soak up the rural culture. Farms feed families and communities. They are both workplaces with heavy equipment, huge vehicles, specialized implements, large animals and water areas and homes where children live and play. Farming parents can frequently find themselves balancing the ongoing and unpredictable demands of farm work with the important task of supervising and caring for children. As a result, farms can be very dangerous, especially for kids under five years of age. These young children are taken onto the farm worksite, not to engage in work, but as a means of being supervised. So what is the answer? Separating young children from farm work is the best option, unfortunately most farm parents have poor or no access to subsidized, affordable, seasonally available child care options. There are guidelines for creating safe play spaces for children on farms that can be found on the Safe Kids Canada website.
Tractors are involved with the majority of deaths and injuries to children on farms. These large pieces of machinery can rollover or runover. Keeping young children away from tractors will reduce the number of injuries that happen. That means no extra riders and no bystanders when a tractor is in use.
For older children who are beginning to learn about farming activities, there are North American Guidelines for Children’s Agricultural Tasks (fondly called NAGCAT) that help parents evaluate their child’s ability from a cognitive and physical standpoint. The Guidelines, separated into 62 different tasks, ask parents questions about their child’s attention span, coordination and experience, as well as provide information on essential safety gear and precautions that should be followed when children are engaged in a particular type of farm activity.
September 19 – 25, 2010 is National Farm Safety Week. Got to http://www.necasag.org to find farm safety events in your community.
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