The Editor’s Blog
Recent Posts:
- Unleashing the Artist Within
- Fireworks
- Our Pool
- Keeping Children Safe…One Home at a Time, One Toy at a Time.
- Falling Furniture: A Very Real Home Hazard
- A Choking Averted
- When Cell Phones Interfere with Safe Play
- Springtime Means New Dangers
- Sprawled on the Floor, Doing a Puzzle
- A Worldwide Safety Standard?
- Simple, Universal, Fun
- Spring Cleaning
- Toy Fair is Coming, Bringing the Future of the Industry
- Toys for the Next Generation
- Children's Music and Video Review – “Here Comes the 1-2-3s” by They Might Be Giants
When Cell Phones Interfere with Safe Play
by Daniel Sean Kaye
As I drove through my neighborhood recently, I saw something I should be happy to see – a mom playing baseball with her three children. It was very Norman Rockwell-ish, with the children running madly about and all sorts of sports equipment tossed around the yard haphazardly.
But as one of the kids hit the ball Mom had just pitched, I noticed she was on her cell phone, not really paying attention to the kids. The ball went high above her barely outstretched arm, winding its way at my car and bouncing inches away from the car that followed me. Just a split-second later and the ball may have hit the driver’s window or – because her window was open – struck her in the face. One can only guess what would have happened after that.
The mother pointed to one child and mouthed, “Go get the ball.” The child ran across the road, retrieved the ball, and ran back. The mother, focused on her phone conversation, never looked up to see if it was safe for her child to cross the street.
It’s easy to get distracted, especially when we get a phone call. And since our society has become so attached to cell phones, it is often hard to ignore a call. Maybe it’s work, maybe a friend, maybe even a wrong number, but regardless of who it is, the truth is that a moment’s distraction can lead to a potential tragedy. We shouldn’t rely on our children to predict potential consequences. Running into the street to get a ball is an innocent action for a child.
We need to be vigilant. We can’t take it for granted that our children will always take precautions or that others will be watching out for them. Maybe we need to leave the cell phones aside when we’re playing with our children in order to ensure their safety and to give them the attention they deserve. That decision can make all the difference.
April 16, 2008