The Great Divide Between Parents’ Worst Nightmares and What Really Happens to Kids

Bad things happen, and for parents, every news flash and tragic headline can make them fear the worst about their child’s safety. What is the greatest fear you have for your child? Terrorists? Dangerous strangers? According to a recent article on NPR, these are among the more common fears that parents have. But they’re extremely detached from reality, experts say, and many parents may not be paying enough attention to everyday risks, instead focusing on and fearing these unlikely scenarios.

Topping the list of parents’ greatest fears are kidnapping, school snipers, and terrorists, when in reality, the most common cause of death or harm to children is car accidents. This misplaced focus on the extremely unlikely is detrimental to kids because it distracts parents from the dangers that matter, says Christie Barnes, author and mother of four, whose work was featured in the NPR article. By focusing their energies instead on the simple, everyday safeguards to a child’s health – such as buckling them up in the car or teaching them proper pool safety – parents can take charge of their child’s well being.

Here are the top five ways kids are hurt or killed in this country, accompanied by related data for kids in California:

1. Car accidents. Unintentional injuries, including accidents, were the leading cause of death in ’07 among CA kids of all ages
2. Homicide. Accounted for 39 deaths of CA kids ages 5-14 in ’07 – and 388 among California kids ages 15-19
3. Abuse. In California, there were 97,220 substantiated cases of child abuse in ’08
4. Suicide. 383 children/youth ages 5-24 committed suicide in ’07
5. Drowning. There were over 25,000 hospitalizations due to unintentional injuries, including drownings, in CA among kids under age 20 in ’06

Posted by Jordan Handcox

This entry was posted on Friday, September 17th, 2010 at 1:02 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.