The Parenting Journal

My older daughter figured out the round doorknob cover at 28 months. She’d watched me open it a dozen times, and one afternoon she just sat down, worked both thumbs into the seam, and popped it off like she’d been...

The living room looks harmless. Soft couch, coffee table, maybe a rug. But the average living room contains more active hazards for a crawling or walking toddler than almost any other room in the house, and most of them are...

The bathroom is the most dangerous room in your house. Not the kitchen, not the stairs. The bathroom, because it combines water, hard surfaces, medications, and cleaning chemicals in a space roughly the size of a walk-in closet, and your...

About 3,300 children age 5 and younger are treated in U.S. emergency rooms each year for window fall injuries (CPSC). That number has stayed stubbornly consistent for years, and the reason is simple: windows are one of the few hazards...

Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury death in children ages 1–4 (CDC). Not car accidents. Not falls. Water. And most of those drownings happen in home pools, often within a few feet of an adult who had no...

Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury death in children ages 1–4 (CDC). Not a distant risk. Not something that happens to other families. The number one cause, for the age group that toddles straight toward water without a...

The kitchen is the most dangerous room in your house for a mobile child. Not the bathroom, not the garage. The kitchen. Open flames, boiling water, heavy appliances at grabbing height, and cabinets full of cleaners and sharp objects, all...

A wood stove is one of the most beautiful hazards in a home. The radiant heat, the crackling fire, the cast iron glowing orange at the seams. And then your toddler walks over and reaches out a hand.Burns from wood...