Safety is Foremost and Don’t Use the Word Accident

This is the third in a series of 3 posts on Child Safety

Post 1: Better Safe than Stupid...click here
Post 2: Dr. Singer, Practice what you Preach...click here

A recent report by the Center for Disease Control concerning childhood injury provides some very useful information. In a Washington Post article, titled “How Kids Get Hurt” author David Brown states, “Around the world, fatal injuries in children total 830,000 a year, a number equal to roughly all the children in Chicago. That’s 2270 a day, of which at least 1000 could have been prevented, experts say.”

Brown interviewed Julie Gilchrist, a physician and epidemiologist at CDC, and one of the authors of the report. Brown explains, “You won’t hear Gilchrist or her colleagues use the word accidents. That word, they say, implies that the events could not have been avoided and the damage could not have been prevented—exactly the opposite message they want to convey.”

STATS from David Brown:
**Childhood injuries cause the nation about $300 billion a year.
**In motor vehicle deaths, the risk that comes with age reflects numerous behaviors and vulnerabilities. As soon as a child is able to exert willpower, risk goes up. Of children four and younger who are killed, 30% are unrestrained. Of teenagers killed, more than half are not wearing seatbelts.

STATS from the CDC Childhood Injury Report:
INJURY DEATHS
**On average 12,175 children…zero to 19 years of age die each year in the United States from an unintentional injury.
**Males have higher injury death rates than females.
**Injuries due to transportation are the leading cause of death for children.

The leading causes of injury death differ by age group:
**For children less than one year of age, two thirds of injury deaths are due to suffocation.
**Drowning is the leading cause of injury death for those one to four years of age.
**For children five to nineteen years of age, the most injury deaths are due to being an occupant in a motor vehicle traffic crash.

NON-FATAL INJURIES
**An estimated 9.2 million children annually have an initial emergency department visit for an unintentional injury.
**Males generally have higher non-fatal injury rates than females.
**Injuries due to falls are the leading cause of non-fatal injury: each year, approximately 2.8 million children have an initial emergency department visit for injuries from a fall. For children less than one year of age, falls account for over 50% of non-fatal injuries.

Spouse Disability Leads to Greater Marital Satisfaction?

The time has come in this blog, to add a new key word: counterintuitive. That word came to mind when I read about one study done at Brigham Young University which found that the onset of physical disability boosts marital happiness more often than not.

Consider these two Findings:
>Both men and women, regardless of age, reported being happier in their marriage after they themselves became physically disabled.

>Men whose spouse became physically disabled also experienced greater happiness in their relationship.

"The numbers show that couples seem to come together when one of them experiences physical limitations," said lead author Jeremy Yorgason, a Brigham Young University professor. The results - published in the journal Research on Aging - are based on information provided by 1,217 married people randomly selected from around the country. Researchers tracked the lives of the study participants for 12 years.

Exactly why physical limitations boost marital happiness is not fully understood by researchers, Yorgason said. One hint from the new study is that in some cases disability brings more couple interaction.

Author: I am always hesitant to be swayed by the findings of one research study, but this one is fascinating. And if it gives hope and support to couples who have been dealt this hand in life, it’s worth its weight in gold.

Reader Insists: Dr. Singer, Practice What You Preach! Now You Decide

Pediatric Nurse Cindy criticized me after reading my October column about the man I saw mowing his lawn with his infant in a snugly on his back. My question remains: Isn't there a big difference between taking action when a child appears to be in danger and the child's parent is right there? Here is my follow-up parenting column on child safety published on January 3, 2010 in the Home News Tribune:

If you see a child in a dangerous predicament, would you intervene? Assuming your answer is yes, what if the danger unfolds in the presence of the child's parent? That's a different story and I'd recommend using common sense. It burns me up to see a parent acting irresponsibly. In fact, a Connecticut mother was recently charged with a felony (risk of injury to a minor) after police discovered that her 3-year-old child wandered from their home alone and crossed a busy street.

Home News Tribune reader Cindy took umbrage with my October column that described an irresponsible father mowing his lawn with his infant in a snugly on his back. Didn't the father recognize this as a dangerous situation? Cindy insisted, "Most inexcusable is that you did see the danger Dr. Singer, but did nothing. As a marriage therapist, I am quite certain you could have communicated in an appropriate and effective way, the danger of the situation and the risk to this young child. Practice what you preach, Dr. Singer! Child safety is everyone's responsibility." You won't be surprised to learn that Cindy (an RN) worked in pediatric I.C.U. for 5 years, and now works at a children's rehabilitation hospital, where the primary diagnosis is traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury.

Cindy wants to change me from being a passive observer of human behavior into an activist. But I wonder if child safety is really everyone's responsibility? Or is it only in the absence of the child's parent?

Here's my absence-of-a-parent story that took place last January in Jerusalem in the Old City. My wife, daughter and I sat down to a slice of hot pizza in an outdoor cafe on a chilly afternoon. I noticed a mother nearby with an infant in a stroller and a young Israeli boy (about 4 years old) with a huge knapsack on his back. A few minutes later, I glanced back and saw the boy, but the woman and infant had disappeared. Had the woman forgotten her toddler? The young boy shuffled away alone and I put down my pizza, grabbed my knapsack, and followed him.

My wife asked where I was going, and I responded that I think a mother just walked away and forgot to take her toddler. The little boy proceeded up dozens of steps, which overlooked the Cardo archeological excavation, and turned right onto a busy pedestrian thoroughfare. I was 20 feet behind the toddler, when my daughter came running after me and reprimanded, "Dad, you are going to get arrested for stalking that little boy! He obviously knows where he's going and if he turns around and sees a six-foot American man following him, he'll be scared to death."

Nearby, a middle-aged woman asked us if everything was OK, and I expressed my concern that this child wandered away from his mother, and is lost and walking the streets alone. She replied, "I live nearby, and he's not lost. Children in this neighborhood usually walk home from school by themselves. It's like the old days when people felt safe about their children being on the streets."

As a father, I could not sit and eat lunch while a little lost boy (in my mind) was wandering through the streets alone. I now understand that there are significant cultural differences when it comes to child safety, and the question of whether child safety is everyone's responsibility. Bottom line for me: in the absence of a parent, take action when a child appears to be in danger.

Be Counted columnist Dr. Alan Singer is a marriage therapist in Highland Park. Respond to this column via his Web site, www.FamilyThinking.com
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Avoid Divorce: Marry an Agricultural Engineer

True love may be the key to a long and happy marriage – but being a dentist or an agricultural engineer helps, too, according to new research.

A paper that correlates occupations with divorce and separation rates, to be published in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology (author: great name for a Journal) reveals that those employed in extrovert and stressful jobs are highly likely to divorce, as are those who work in the caring professions.

Dancers, choreographers and bartenders have around a 40% chance of experiencing a relationship breakdown. But also at high risk are nurses, psychiatrists and those who help the elderly and disabled. Conversely, agricultural engineers, optometrists, dentists, clergymen and podiatrists are all in occupations which carry a 2-7% chance of family breakdown.

It's all described in a recent article in The Observer based in the U.K.

Helping Others is Rather Self-Serving

Psychologists claim that it is frequently the giver, not the recipient, who reaps the largest psychological gains from a gift.
Here is my monthly Home News Tribune column that was published on November 30, 2009.

In a New York Times article about gift-giving, Tara Parker-Pope wrote about the importance of gifts in helping to define relationships and strengthen bonds with family and friends. She described the "potlatch," which is a ceremony that celebrates extreme giving. Some native cultures have engaged in this ritual for thousands of years. "Although cultural interpretations vary," Parker-Pope explains, "often the status of a given family in a clan or village was dictated not by who had the most possessions, but instead, by who gave away the most."

Random acts of kindness abound but only if you know where to look. Here's something that I witnessed recently and there is no better time than the Thanksgiving season to share this story.

Last summer, I was riding on a crowded rush-hour subway in New York when the following display of altruism unfolded. Scout's honor, that there is no author's embellishment in my description. A young woman in her twenties was seated next to the subway door and saw an elderly woman trying to board the subway as the doors were closing. The young woman reached out her hand to hold the door, and the elderly woman successfully shuffled in. She shouted "Thank you!" as she was catching her breath.

Noticing drops of water all over the elderly woman's coat, the young woman said, "Darn! I can't believe it is raining and I forgot my umbrella at home!" The older woman reached into her huge multi-colored shopping bag, grabbed something, and said to the young woman, "Here's a disposable poncho that I carry around in case someone ever needs it." In response, the young woman jumped up, thanked her, and insisted, "Please take my seat." The older woman responded, "That's not necessary: I only have two more stops." At that point, five other people on the bench seat slid over so that these two new friends could sit beside one another.

When stories like this unfold in front of my eyes, I instinctively look around to see if someone is about to yell, "Smile! You're on Candid Camera!" (That tells you my age). I was so moved by this brief experience that I immediately wrote down the details of the story.

In difficult times people seem to help one another, even complete strangers. Maybe in the post-Sept.11 era in which we live, the awareness of our enemies who want to harm us motivates us to seek out family and friends and to be kind to others on subways and in supermarkets.

Take a wild guess at what researchers are discovering. Studies have shown that when you help others, you actually help yourself. The finest description of the health benefits of altruism and compassion comes from Dr. Dean Ornish in his Newsweek essay titled, "Love is Real Medicine." Ornish explains,

"Instead of viewing the time we spend with friends and family as luxuries, we can see that these relationships are among the most powerful determinants of our well-being and survival. We are hard-wired to help each other. Science is documenting the healing values of love, intimacy, community, compassion, forgiveness, altruism and service. Seen in this context, being unselfish may be the most self-serving approach to life, for it helps free both the giver and recipient from suffering, disease, and premature death."

On that note, have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Be Counted columnist Dr. Alan Singer is a Marriage Therapist in Highland Park. Respond to this column via his Web site www.FamilyThinking.com