I remember when my niece Abi walked happily into the living room with a marker top in her mouth. As if I had never seen anything more frightening, I immediately ran to her and had her spit it out. To her, the marker top was fun and colorful. To me, it was the most dangerous thing in the house for a 3 year old. Of course, if you gave me two minutes I could come up with a laundry list of other potentially dangerous items in the house: the wall power outlets, the dining room chairs, the door hinges, just to name a few. It is not hard to find potential hazards in a home.
My name is Amy Villaseñor and I am the Chief Product Officer for First GrAID. I have a software engineering background and have spent many years volunteering with young kids to teach them about computer science and engineering. First GrAID to me is another way to help parents and families keep their little ones safe. We hope to supplement, and never replace, the conversations that parents have with their children's health and safety. We know parents cannot be everywhere and that’s where we try to fill the gap. We hope to provide children with fun ways to learn about how their actions inside and outside the house could be potentially harmful. For parents, we hope to provide more information on how their children are perceiving and interacting with those actions to facilitate teaching moments along the way
Tip of the day:
Make hand washing fun for your children by turning it into a game. On a large piece of paper or white board write down activities for which they should wash their hands. Give them points for each activity hand-washing. For example, an activity can be ‘eating a meal’ and its handwashing points can be 5. While hand washing after can be 2. Kids therefore learn that it is super important to wash her/his hands before consuming any food item. For a fun experiment, fill a bowl with water and pepper. Have the child stick their finger in the middle of the bowl, nothing will happen. Put soap on their finger and then have them stick their finger in the bowl and watch the dirty pepper flakes run away!!!