Home alone: Keeping your kids safe after school

If a parent is there, it's pretty easy to make sure your kids get home from school or daycare safely. However, with many Canadian households relying on two incomes to get by, kids sometimes need to come home to an empty house. Here are some tips for getting them home safely and what to teach them to do in the event of an emergency.

If your child takes the bus, make sure they know to look both ways to cross the street and observe all of the other rules of the road. Practice often with them on walks to make sure that they know what to do and what not to do.

While it seems to be a no-brainer that kids shouldn't talk to strangers, your child is a natural people-pleaser and will want to help an adult that needs directions or that is just saying hi. Teach your child to not respond regardless of how nice people seem. If an adult is being persistent, tell your child to either run to the nearest Block Parent home or to your home, whichever is closer.

If your child does not take the bus, have a trusted family member, friend, or other child's parent pick up the child for you. Don't resort to asking someone you don't know well to pick up your child if you are crunched for time and someone else can't make it; ditch whatever you are doing to ensure your child's safety.

Since bullying is zero tolerance at many schools, many bullies take their bullying off school grounds. After school is prime time for bullies to verbally or physically abuse their targets. Have a frank talk with your kids while they are very young about bullies, as bullying can start in kindergarten.

Make sure they know that they can tell an adult without consequences, and enrol them in martial arts to teach them how to defend themselves should a bully try to physically abuse them. Martial arts teach defence without offense, which will allow your kids to protect themselves without significant harm to the other child should a bully target them. Girls are definitely not immune and should also be taught how to defend themselves.  If word gets around that they know how to defend themselves, they won't be picked on.

Kick it up a notch and teach your child to stand up to bullies on behalf of other children. Bullying is enabled by silence on the part of other kids. This behaviour has a great side effect; the more times your child stands up to bullies, the more popular they will be at school.

If your child is being victimized by a bully in your neighbourhood, go over to their house and have a frank talk with their parents. It will be confrontational, as many bullies come out of abusive households to start with, but there is a good chance that the parents will tell the child to stop targeting your child after you leave, even if the conversation seems like it was pointless.

Your Home Security Dealer can install a home alarm system that will let you monitor when your kids come home from school. Your system can email or text you an alert that will tell you if your child does not come home at the expected time.

Your kids can also contact a live agent through your two-way voice alarm system in case of an emergency, which comforts your child and allows an adult to talk them through the problem if something should happen while you are gone. With a Reliance Protectron home security system, your child is never alone.

Find a home security dealer today to find out more about what we can do to protect your kids with our home security systems.