Good to Know

Massachusetts is the best state to have a baby, according to a new study. WalletHub ranked all 50 states based on 32 factors related to cost, health care quality and accessibility, and baby- and family-friendliness. The Bay State, which earned the highest score for its parental leave policy, topped the list, followed by Minnesota and Vermont.

63% of parents say their teens’ use of social media has increased during the pandemic. That’s according to a recent Ann & Robert Children’s Hospital of Chicago, in which 45% of those parents were appreciative of social media during the crisis, while 43% are increasingly concerned about it. The most concerning platforms to parents? Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube, respectively.

Parents are paying attention to race and discussing it with their children in ways that they haven’t in recent history. New findings from the 2020 American Family Survey show that Americans of both party affiliations are talking about issues of race in higher rates. When asked “Since March have you discussed Black Lives Matter or police brutality with your family?” More than 75 percent of parents answered yes.

What to know about Child ID Kits, and how to make your own

No parent wants to think about their child in an emergency, but being prepared can save time. A child safety kit is a helpful tool for parents and law enforcement when the unexpected happens.

Basically, it’s a packet to store all of your child’s identifying information in the event that you have to report your child missing, said Rick Musson, a law enforcement consultant for the life insurance site QuickQuote. com.

“If your child is missing, it’s very stressful and it can be difficult to even answer the simplest questions. This completed kit contains information to help answer the investigating officer’s identifying questions and includes fingerprints and DNA that can be used if needed,” he said. “Most police departments offer these kits to parents for free, and each kit will come with directions for how to complete it properly.”

To create your own, include:

• Child’s name • Age • Hair color • Eye color • Height • Weight • Address • Special medical needs or medications • Your child’s fingerprints (with the help of a washable ink pad) • Hair follicle for DNA purposes

You can find free downloadable Child ID Kits from these resources:

• Ready.gov • MissingKids.org • PollyKlaas.org

Check with your local law enforcement office to see if it offers to take fingerprints for a child safety kit, said private investigator Angelica Brooks, founder of The Silent Voices Project, a nonprofit dedicated to research and education about human trafficking and investigating missing persons and cold cases for families with limited resources.

Store your child safety kit somewhere safe and secure but easily accessible, such as in a home safe, Musson said. Update the photograph and information every 6 months.

The Better Business Bureau advises parents to be aware of a child safety kit con where scammers offer free kits as a way to get their hands on sensitive information that can be used to steal a child’s identity.

Watch out for scammers who insist that to receive your kit you need to tell them sensitive personal information about your child, including their full name, address, birthdate and Social Security or Social Insurance number.

Children’s Museum ‘Milk Bottle’ gets a facelift

The iconic Hood Milk Bottle that welcomes guests to the Boston Children’s Museum recently got a facelift. The 40-foot-tall bottle has a revamped facade, new windows, awnings, exterior lighting, and new HVAC system. Built in 1934 by Arthur Gagner of Taunton, Mass., to dispense the homemade ice cream he produced, the 15,000pound milk bottle was one of America’s first fastfood drive-in restaurants and an authentic example of the “Coney Island” style of architecture. It’s sat at the doors of the Children’s Museum since 1977, a destination landmark that delights millions of people from around the world and the city of Boston. If real, it could hold 58,620 gallons of milk.

New picture book helps explain Alzheimer’s to children

Alzeheimer’s and dementia can be a difficult subject to discuss, especially when talking to a child. Watching a loved progress through the stages of Alzheimer’s disease can be frightening, even for adults, so imagine being a child struggling to understand why grandma is acting so strangely or can’t remember who you are.

A new picture book created by the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America can help parents introduce the subject to children. “Dancing with Granddad” takes young readers on an age-appropriate learning journey with Nia, a 7-year-old girl, whose grandfather has Alzheimer’s and will need to move to a new home where he will be safer.

The book gently introduces Granddad’s behavior changes (such as retelling stories, wandering, and confusion) while sharing the constant of the wonderful relationship between Nia and Granddad and her loving parents who are caring for him.

The book also includes a message from AFA about how to introduce a conversation with children about Alzheimer’s disease.

“Young children, in particular, may sense that something is amiss when a family member has Alzheimer’s, but not be able to understand the subtle changes that are occurring early on in the progression of the disease,” says Jennifer Reeder, LCSW, AFA’s Director of Educational & Social Services. “The best time to talk to children about Alzheimer’s or any dementia-related illness is as soon as you can. This conversation is about nurturing and maintaining the bonds between the family members while also helping to eliminate the fear of the unknown for the child, educating them in an age-appropriate way, teaching them how to be compassionate, and learning new ways to communicate.”

The book is available at the AFA e-store at shop.alzfdn.org or by calling 866-232-8484. All proceeds go toward AFA programs, services, and research for treatment and a cure.

ADVOCATE like a MOTHER

Sixteen years after her daughter’s dresser tip-over death, Sterling mom still fighting for safer furniture standards

Kimberly Amato still has her daughter Meghan’s Christmas outfit from 2004. A red velvet skirt with white embroidery and a black turtleneck sweater, it’s tucked away with some other tiny toddler clothes – the tags still on it.

Meghan never wore the sweet little outfit. Sixteen years ago, a week before Christmas, she died under a dresser on her bedroom floor while the rest of her family was asleep.

No one in the house heard the dresser fall. Meghan’s little body prevented it from hitting the floor hard, and she was unable to cry. She suffocated as a result of airway compression by a drawer.

Before the nightmare unfolded, Amato, of Sterling, had never heard of a dresser tipping over onto a child. At the time, she was a childbirth educator and birth doula with a 6-year-old boy and 3-year-old year twins – Meghan and her twin brother – who had carefully childproofed everything in her house.

“I was often accused of being overly-protective and over the top with the childproofing. I had even removed the furniture from the living room so they couldn't jump off of it,” she said. “I was teaching infant care classes and this was not something that was part of the curriculum. It wasn't in parenting magazines or classes. Furniture anchors were not sold in stores with other childproofing supplies, so no one knew they existed.”

Amato never imagined the short, 100-pound dresser in her daughter’s room would, or even could, tip over. She never imagined her blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, who weighed just 28 pounds, could somehow pull 10 NOVEMBER2020 down a stable-looking piece of furniture that took two adults to move. Marketed for children’s rooms, Amato figured the dresser had been vetted for safety.

It is a common assumption, according to a recent Consumer Reports survey. Ninety-six percent of Americans believe that home goods costing $75 or more, such as dressers, adhere to a required safety standard.

But that wasn’t the case when Meghan died on Dec. 18, 2004 – and it still isn’t true today.

Called to action

Every day, nearly 40 kids are injured when a piece of furniture, an appliance, or a television tips over, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC). And on average, a child dies in such an incident about every two weeks.

The CPSC’s most recent report attributes furniture tip-overs to the deaths of 556 people from 2000 to 2018. Most victims were between the ages of 1 to 3 ½ years old, and nearly all of them were under the age 14. And at least 210 people— mostly children ages 6 and younger—have been killed when dressers or other furniture that store clothes have tipped over.

Still, regulations and safety standards remain unchanged. In fact, there is no mandatory safety standard for the stability of furniture like dressers.

Instead, there is only a voluntary standard, which states

BY AMANDA COLLINS BERNIER

that a clothing storage unit taller than 27 inches should stay standing with 50 pounds of weight hanging from an open drawer, while the other drawers are closed.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Manufacturers have the option to meet this standard or not.

“The more I learned, the more angry I became,” Amato said of realizing the safety standard deficiencies. “The industry expects the consumer to finish making the furniture safe by anchoring it to the wall, however studies have shown that even if parents are aware that dressers can tip, many still don't anchor them, either because they don't think it will happen to them,

Kimberly Amato continues fighting for safer furniture standards nearly 16 years after losing her 3-year-old daughter, Meghan.

because they don't have the tools or know-how, or they rent and are afraid they will lose their security deposit.”

Since she lost Meggie, Amato has been working to change this. The very night Meghan died, Amato wrote an email to her loved ones to inform them of the tragedy, and implore them to anchor their dressers to the wall.

Within weeks, she founded Meghan’s Hope, an organization to raise awareness of furniture tip-

overs. She shared her story with local mom groups and day cares, exhibited at safety fairs, asked pediatric offices to post or share flyers and brochures.

In 2014, she became a spokesperson for Nationwide's Make Safe Happen Campaign, and the following year, helped inform the CPSC’s Anchor It! campaign. The advent of blogging and social media helped Amato reach more and more people, but still, she wanted to find a way to move beyond awareness, and drive change.

Two years ago, Amato and six other families from across the nation who had lost children in tip-overs formed Parents Against Tip-Overs (PAT). “We'd all been doing a similar thing, trying to educate and raise awareness in our local area, and were all having trouble SUBMITTED PHOTO reaching the people we knew we needed to reach and to do so nationally,” she said.

Partnering with other consumer advocacy groups like Kids in Danger, Consumer Reports, and the Consumer Federation of America, PAT created a plan for gainng the attention they believe the tip-over issue deserves. Then, they went to Washington.

A federal standard

PAT families are among dozens of groups lobbying for stronger standards and advocating for the passage of

the STUDY Act (Stop TipOvers of Unstable Risky Dressers on Youth), which would require a mandatory safety standard for dressers within one year of its enactment.

“The industry’s standards are completely voluntary and don’t protect enough children,” said William Wallace, manager, Home and Safety Policy for Consumer Reports. “Right now, there’s no easy way to simply look at a dresser and tell whether it’s likely to tip over—so it’s critical to put a strong standard in place that consumers can trust.” Where the voluntary standard falls short – not accounting for situations like a child climbing, sitting or standing on drawers, or even the dresser being on carpet – the STURDY Act calls for testing stability for real-life scenarios on all free-standing clothing units. That would include loaded drawers and multiple open drawers, accounting for the impact of carpeting on stability, and simulating the dynamic forces a climbing child would cause.

The law would also mandate strong warning requirements and labels.

The STURDY Act passed the House with bipartisan support last fall, but has been sitting in the Senate Committee of Commerce, Science and Consumer Protection for over a year.

If it doesn’t pass the Senate by the end of this year, advocates will have to start over with the next session of Congress in January. Frustrated, Amato blames “bitter partisanship” for the failure in moving the bill forward.

“I assure you that furniture falls equally on children, regardless of whether their parents are Republicans or Democrats,” Amato wrote in an op-ed published last month in USA Today. “This is not a partisan issue.”

What you should do

Parents aren’t helpless as they wait on lawmakers or the furniture industry to make changes. Families can dramatically reduce the risk of tip-overs by properly anchoring items that can tip or fall to the wall.

“The No. 1 excuse I hear is ‘I'm always with my kids,’” said Amato. “You aren't. You sleep. You use the bathroom. You look at your phone, the TV, or a computer while you are ‘watching’ your kids. You are human. It’s OK.”

Amato reminds parents that no one thinks “it” will happen to them – whatever “it” might be. Tip-overs happen every 24 minutes, and about every 30 minutes, tipped furniture or a falling TV sends an injured child to the emergency room. More than half of tip-overs happen in a bedroom, but it’s not just dressers that can fall: shelving units, wardrobes, televisions, and appliances can all be dangerous.

“What I want to say to parents is this: You cannot tell by looking at a piece of furniture if it will tip. It doesn't matter how tall or short it is, how heavy or light it is, how old or new it is, how expensive or cheap it is, who made it or where you bought it. Physics is what causes furniture to tip,” said Amato. “You can be in the same room and be powerless to stop it.”

AnchorIt.gov has tips and how-tos for securing furniture. Anti-tip straps or anti-tip kits are sold online and in-stores for as low as $5 and take as little as five minutes to install.

“The money it costs to anchor everything is a small price compared to a funeral,” said Amato. “I know that sounds harsh, but I buried my beautiful little girl three days before Christmas. I share her story so you don't ever have to walk in my shoes.”

For more information about Meghan and for tips on how to avoid furniture accidents, visit meghanshope.org and www. stoptipovers.org.

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A loaded question

Asking about safe gun storage before playdates

Don’t let stigma stop you from ensuring your child’s safety. Find out how firearms are secure and stored in a new friend’s home.

BY JOAN GOODCHILD

If a child is planning to spend time with a new friend, there are many questions parents should ask before dropping off for a first playdate. Will an adult supervise play? Are there any pets in the home? Do you have a pool and is it locked? Do you have any rules about screen time or eating treats? These are all important to gauge your child’s level of health and safety while visiting a new home.

But there is one question often left off the list – and it is a critical one. The question is about guns and safe firearms storage.

“An estimated 4.6 million children live in homes where they have access to an unlocked or easily accessible gun. Maybe even more concerning, over 70 percent of kids know where that gun is stored in their home,” said Kyelanne Hunter, the Sarah Brady Fellow at Brady United, a national gun violence prevention organization. “That’s why you should ask about firearms, and how they are stored when leaving your child with another family.”

Hunter notes that during the COVID pandemic, gun sales are up. Numbers from the Brookings Institute find almost 3 million more firearms were sold in the months following the start of the pandemic in March than would have ordinarily been sold during those months. And with many families creating so-called educational and social “pods" to keep the virus from spreading, these conversations are more necessary than ever.

There were at 241 unintended shootings by children in 2019, causing more than 100 deaths and nearly 150 injuries, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“When everyday an estimated eight children or teens are shot as a result of family fire, a shooting involving an improperly stored or misused gun found in the home, simply asking about firearms can save your child’s life,” said Hunter.

The Center for Gun Violence Prevention at Massachusetts General Hospital aims to prevent firearm-related violence and to promote safety in homes and communities. The center is led by pediatric surgeon Dr. Peter Masiakos and Dr. Chana Sacks, both of whom have been personally impacted by gun violence in their lives.

Masiakos urges parents not to feel uncomfortable broaching the topic of firearms in a home.

“The fundamental problem here is the resistance in asking so you don’t upset someone. But it becomes moot if a child is injured or killed,” he said.

Masiakos said storage practices for firearms vary widely from home to home and parents should assume, regardless of location, that the potential for a gun exists in just about any house. Everyone, from gun owners to concerned parents who want to ensure their kids’ well-being, should be open to a discussion about storage and safety.

“You own a gun, you have to talk about it,” said Masiakos. “You need to talk about safely owning a weapon. Children in the home need to know they are around. The same adventurous kid who is looking around for Christmas presents can find a gun. Have the conversation.”

Masiakos also recommends that parents talk to their children about gun safety before leaving them with another family. Advise them not to touch a gun if they find one. To avoid parental bedrooms because that is the area where guns are typically kept. These pointers can go a long way in helping the child stay safe.

“I think the question needs to be asked as you would ask any other safety question,” said Masiakos. “It is unusual for people to get offended if you ask them. I think we have to rethink this whole phenomenon of being uncomfortable about asking questions that provide safety.”

“Talking about firearms in the home should be like asking about food allergies or other, general care questions when dropping your children off,” added Hunter. “Also, if you are a gun owner, proactively share that your guns are safely stored to friends who bring their kids over. Saying ‘just so you know, we own guns, but they are locked securely and the ammo is locked in a separate safe’ will normalize the conversation and encourage others to ask the important questions in return.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics says you should talk to your children, too. Remind your kids that if they ever come across a gun, they must stay away from it and tell you immediately.

5 questions to ask before a playdate

Visiting another family's home exposes your child to a new environment. Before a playdate, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents ask these questions.

Who will be watching the

children? Will a parent be home, or will another adult caregiver be home? Will older siblings, other adults or relatives be there?

Do you have a swimming pool or trampoline (or any other things that are

potentially unsafe)? If swimming is planned, ask who will supervise. What are the parents’ rules for safety on a trampoline or other activities where children can be injured?

Do you have any guns in

your house? If so, how is it stored? Roughly one-third of U.S. homes with children have a gun. Tragedies have occurred when kids found guns that parents thought were hidden.

What are your rules about

screen/media use? If you don't want your child to watch movies that are rated higher than PG or PG-13, or to play a video game rated higher than E, let the other parent know.

What pets do you have? If the family has a pet, ask if it's friendly. Let the parent know if your child is nervous or scared around animals.