Dr. M.J. Bazos, MD, Patient Handout
6 Year Old Anticipatory Guidance

• Enforce consistent, explicit, and firm rules for behavior.
• Ensure that the child wears a seat belt in the car at all times.
• Reinforce with the child safety rules for swimming pools. Teach the child how to swim. Ensure that swimming pools in the child's community, in his apartment complex, or at his home have a four-sided fence with a self-closing, self-latching gate. Children should be supervised by an adult whenever they are in or near water.
• Teach the child how to put on sunscreen before he goes outside to play or swim.
• Keep the child's environment free of smoke. Test smoke detectors to ensure that they work properly. Change batteries yearly. Reinforce with the child safety rules for the home. Conduct fire drills at home. • Lock up poisons, matches, and electrical tools.
• Ensure that guns, if in the home, are locked up and that ammunition is stored separately. A trigger lock is an additional important precaution.
• Reinforce with the child safety rules for getting to and from school. Reinforce with the child pedestrian and neighborhood safety skills. Reinforce playground safety. Ensure that the child is supervised before and after school in a safe environment. Reinforce with the child safety rules for interacting with strangers (e.g. answering the telephone or the door or never getting into a stranger's car). Ensure that the child's school curriculum includes information on how to deal with strangers.
• Teach the child about sports safety, including the need to wear protective sports gear such as a mouth guard or a face protector.