The current study examined children’s understanding of No Diving warning signs. Normally-developing 7 to 10 year olds were asked questions to assess their understanding of text, images, and main messages on No Diving warning signs. These structured interviews were audio recorded and responses were later coded. Results revealed that children understood the behavior advised against (diving), why it is prohibited (can hit head on the bottom), and what can happen (serious injury including hospitalization). They understood that breaking your neck results in limitations in mobility and can occur from diving, but they did not anticipate that such an injury is likely to occur. There were no gender and few age differences, but diving experience was associated with children significantly downplaying their risk of injury. The findings suggest that having No Diving warning signs explicitly mention a broken neck, may serve to remind children of this potential consequence at the time of decision making. Active adult supervision is particularly important for children who have prior positive diving experiences.
In most industrialized countries, injuries are the leading cause of death for children 1 through 18 years of age. For infants, many injuries occur in the home when they are acquiring new motor milestones. Thus, as infants' motor competencies change with development, creating increasing opportunities for them to interact with hazards, parent safety strategies need to adapt in synchrony in order to sustain a safe ecological niche and prevent injuries. The present study examined parent safety practices when infants were pre-mobile (i.e., capable of sitting independently) and mobile (i.e., capable of walking independently), with the goal being to examine how parents alter these practices in the context of changes in infant motor capabilities, what motivates these parenting changes, and how well they work to prevent injuries. For pre-mobile infants, parents often used devices to constrain their infants' movements and they did so primarily for convenience; mobile infants were seldom constrained. Supervision was a safety strategy applied at both stages, but parents maintained greater proximity for pre-mobile than mobile infants. Environmental modifications were also used for mobile infants. Parental supervision was negatively associated with injuries in the preceding month, whereas environmental modifications were positively associated with injuries. Parents at both stages rated their infants' behaviors as highly predictable but expected them to become less predictable in the near future. However, they also anticipated reducing supervision and increasing teaching during this timeframe. Implications of these findings for injury prevention are discussed.
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