Blog Post

Preventable injuries are the number one killer of kids in the United States, but they’re also a major problem around the world. That’s why it so important to get the word out. We’re honored that our partners in Japan, Canada and New Zealand are adapting one of our favorite videos to raise awareness and educate parents so all kids can grow up to become whatever they can imagine.

I love the dog park.

I love it because Halea, my dog (a very rare breed of mutt), loves it. She runs and plays and sniffs, and for 30 minutes every day, I feel like I'm actually giving her the attention she deserves.

I love it because of what I see when I'm there. All different kinds, shapes, and sizes of dogs playing together. They don't worry or judge or take things too seriously.

I never imagined the level of deception that would be involved in parenting. I knew my husband and I would fully support Santa, the Easter bunny, and the tooth fairy.

What I didn't expect were the small dishonesties that help us get through the day.

My 15-year-old son recently got his learner’s permit. Enjoy this video, with several more examples of how our kids are watching more than we think.

Every October, schools across the globe celebrate International Walk to School Day. Safe Kids is teaming up with FedEx for the 15th year to host events on October 8 that will teach children how to walk to school safely. In honor of these great events, we’ve developed some information for you and your family to use to help your kids stay safe while walking. It only takes a few minutes today, on International Walk to School Day, or any day throughout the year, to teach your kids how to walk safely.

It is a great honor that two of our PSAs, “Moment of Silence” and “Bubble Wrap,” won 2014 Telly Awards, one of the premier awards honoring the finest in film and video production.  We are thrilled to be recognized at this level, because it helps bring more attention to the issue of child injury prevention.

Both videos were created by Safe Kids’ video director Kris Hixson, whose vision helped make each project a success.

My favorite thing to do while walking by myself was listening to music. I love music. As a child, I was always singing and being scolded by my Aunt Joyce for humming at inappropriate times. But music is soothing to me; it makes me feel happy, playful and, at times, sad. Listening to music and walking seemed, to me, a harmless combination. Needless to say, I soon found out the danger of it.

If there is one thing I know about myself, it’s that I am not the most coordinated person. I know this because I ran cross-country in high school, and I still have the scars to prove it. Even the smallest branch or bump in the road used to be enough to bring me tumbling to the ground in spectacular fashion.

This tradition of tumbling continued when I left for college and became a tour guide. If you have ever been on a tour of a college campus, you can imagine that it is not the best job for the uncoordinated. Leading the tours required me to walk backwards in front of large groups of people. On my very first tour as a freshly-minted guide, I ran into no less than five tree branches and several innocent bystanders, not to mention nearly being struck by a passing car.

One of the most interesting aspects of working at Safe Kids is that we get to play "detective.” If we see a statistic we find alarming, like that every hour of every day a teen is hit by a car and killed or injured in the U.S., we get to try to figure out the five W’s, who, what, where, when and why. Last year, we discovered that the pedestrian death rate for teens is twice that of younger children. This year, we took our detective role one step further. We surveyed 1000 teens ages 13-18 to understand more about their walking habits: what they’re doing, and why.