00:22 - She loves exploring
00:40 - Dont worry, we can make it safer
00:51 - Wear those Helmets
01:37 - Use of knee and elbow pads
02:40 - The training wheels
Hi everybody, Harper Jones with Bow-Tiger and you're watching Saturdays with Harper. Now as you can see behind me, the sun is actually peering through my windows. I am blessed to live in an area where I can still go out and enjoy the outdoors in the winter time. It's not super, super cold where I live. And my daughter can also do the same thing.
Now, although she is a very young little girl, she is really wanting to explore, to learn different things. And one of those, or a couple of those things are outdoor activities like biking, skateboarding, rollerblading. All of these things that make parents just go, "Ooh!" Because you know you're going to see your child fall eventually.Okay, but you can actually sort of aid to make sure that you don't have to be too scared when they fall. There are things that we can do to prevent serious injury from any of the activities that our children are doing.
Now, of course, the first thing that comes to mind, whether your child is on any type of wheel really whether they're biking, whether they're rollerblading, skateboarding, roller skating, whatever it is that they're doing, put a helmet on them. Make sure that they're wearing a helmet but not only make sure that they're wearing a helmet, make sure that the helmet they're wearing actually fits them. A lot of the times, we'll purchase a helmet because it's really cute or we got it as a gift. But it's not necessarily as snug as it needs to be. And you'll notice that the helmet's too big for your child if, after a few minutes of them wearing it, it starts to kind of tilt backwards. It is still protecting the back of their little heads but then the front of their heads are exposed. And we want to make sure that we get a nice, good, snug fit with the helmets to avoid any head injury while they're outdoors playing.
Okay, so another thing that we want to do, although, if you introduce this later on, it is more difficult, make sure that they're wearing all of the pads. That includes the wrists, the elbows, the knees, make sure they're wearing all of it along with their helmet. If you start them off from the first time they go to ride a bike or the first time they jump on a skateboard, if you start them off with all of this padding, they get accustomed to it really quickly. And they won't be so frustrated when you say, "Okay, you've got to put all of these on. And I do recommend that you do wash the padding because kids do sweat outside. Really whether it's winter or summer, they're going to sweat. And so we want to make sure that we do wash these things on a regular basis just to avoid any bacteria.
Now another good idea, though, when you're trying to get your children to wear all of these different pads everywhere, let them pick the pads out at the store. Let them find a cool design, something they think is cool. Even as toddlers, when they pick it out themselves, they're more apt to want to wear it because it was their decision. It was something that they did independently. So that's a good idea if you're having difficulty getting your child to wear these different things.
Now of course, you do also want to make sure that the different, the bikes, the skateboards, anything your children are using, are age appropriate. Toddlers cannot go, obviously, on a two-wheel bike immediately. They have different versions of bikes, even that help them just to learn balance. This is a really good idea and then of course, they have the training wheels. Make sure you start off with training wheels and then ease into the two wheels to avoid any serious injury.
And then with skateboards or roller skates or anything like that as well, they do have the toddler versions. So maybe they are not going to go quite as fast as the skateboarders they see on TV or the roller skaters that they see at the skating rink. But they will get the hang of it, they'll get the idea of it and that's why they need at first before they can move on to the next step of those items.
Now, of course, guys, if you are watching this video today on Facebook or YouTube, please be sure to check out our blog on bow-tiger.com. And as always, we will be back next week and we'll see you then, thanks.
