Managing children's risk of injury in the home: does parental teaching about home safety reduce young children's hazard interactions?

Past research confirms that parents extend much effort to teach their young children about safety, but little is known about this process. The present study examined mothers' use of teaching as a strategy to manage young children's risk of home injury and how this impacts children's hazard interactions. Mothers of three-year-olds completed an in-home room-by-room interview in which they identified injury hazards that concern them, reported on use of teaching to manage risk of injury from these hazards, rated children's understanding of these safety issues and compliance with behavioral guidelines regarding these safety issues, and reported on children's recent interactions with these hazards. They also completed questionnaire measures of how difficult the child is to manage and the child's typical level of risk taking. Results revealed that children's understanding of safety impacted both their compliance and hazard interactions, moderating the impact of risk taking on compliance and also the impact of children's difficult-to-manage score on hazard interactions. These findings demonstrate that teaching strategies need to effectively enhance children's understanding of the safety issue in order to reduce children's risk of hazard interactions.