How do I keep my kids safe when we’re out — crowds, bikes, the road and the water?

Four library pages are cited here. Take the photo before you go in is the crowded day and the child who wanders off. Replace the helmet that took the hit is the bike, scooter or skating helmet. Let the kids call out the bikes is a car game, with crossing the road beside it. Drowning is quiet is the pool, the lake and the beach.

Before a big crowd, take a photo of each child, put your phone number on them, and practise what they will do if they lose you. Take the photo before you go in opens with its box. If your child is missing right now: tell the nearest member of staff or security at once, show them a photo and say what your child is wearing, and call the police. In the United States, the national centre for missing children says to tell the store manager or security first and then call the police straight away — 911. In the United Kingdom, the charity Missing People says that when the missing person is a child, always dial 999, and you do not have to wait 24 hours. Elsewhere, your local emergency number. Many big stores, parks and events have a lost-child procedure that staff can start only once someone tells them. Then stay where staff can reach you, with your phone on. After the police, there is support: in the US, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children on 1-800-843-5678; in the UK, Missing People on 116 000, free, by call or text.

Many people give the photo: at the entrance, before you go in, a sharp picture of every child on their own, head to feet, in what they are wearing today, because the US national centre lists a description of the clothing among the first things to give the police. Many parents write their phone number on the child’s skin, usually the arm or the wrist; others use a temporary tattoo, a waterproof wristband, the inside of a shoe, a tag on a shoelace, or a note in a pocket. The firm warning attached to the method is to keep your child’s name off anything a stranger can read: write your own name and number. One person adds that a number on a child’s arm might draw unwanted attention, and some people worry that it makes a child an easier target; the answer implied is that in a crowd, getting separated is the bigger risk. Put in the area code, and the country code abroad; make sure the phone it rings is with you and working; and teach your child to hold out their arm and show it. To make the ink last, people seal it with a clear coat of liquid bandage, which can sting, itch and peel, and can dry over the writing and blur it, so try it once at home first, or use hairspray over washable marker, or a wristband instead; never use ordinary super glue from a hardware shop: two cautions warn against it, and the National Capital Poison Center in the United States says that as super glue sets it releases heat and can burn skin, and points to a case of a child with a deep burn where nail glue soaked into a cotton shirt. The page does not cover what marker ink or liquid bandage does to young or sensitive skin, so if your child’s skin reacts easily, a wristband or a note in a pocket avoids the question.

Teach what they do before you go, out loud, and have your child say it back. In the United States, the Indiana AMBER Alert guidance for parents says a child who loses their parents in a public place should not wander around looking for them, but go to a checkout counter, the security office or the lost and found, and tell the person in charge that they have lost their parents and need help. Give them the words, with your real name: ‘I’m lost. My mum is [your full name]. Please call this number.’ The national centre for missing children in the United States tells children not to go to just anyone, and to look for a uniformed police officer, a store clerk with a name tag, or a parent with children. Some parents narrow that to another mother with children, and others to any adult with children or a grandmotherly older woman, because she is easier to find than police or security, more likely to stop and help, and, in their judgement, less likely to be a danger. That narrowing is these parents’ judgement, not published guidance: none of them gives a source for it, one objection is that not every woman is safe, and another that fathers look after children too. The page sets out three more plans the parents argue over, staying put, a meeting place and going to staff, each with its limit, and the parents say your child’s age and the place decide between them. Whichever plan you choose, choose one and practise it, and do what it says yourself: if you told your child to wait by the gate, go to the gate. If it happens, two conversations say to tell staff or security straight away rather than searching alone.

After any crash where your child’s head hit, replace the helmet, even if it looks fine, because the foam inside only works once. Replace the helmet that took the hit opens with its box. If your child has just hit their head, look at them before the helmet. Call 911 in the US or 999 in the UK — elsewhere, your local emergency number — if they were knocked out and have not come round, have a fit, cannot stay awake, are confused, have trouble speaking or walking, have new weakness or numbness, have trouble seeing, or are not behaving like themselves. Those signs are on both the CDC’s list in the US and the NHS’s in the UK. The CDC also lists repeated vomiting, a headache that gets worse and does not go away, and one pupil bigger than the other. The NHS also lists a fall from higher than a metre or five stairs, and a hit to the head at speed, as in a road accident. If they are being sick or feel dizzy, the NHS says call 111. In the US, the CDC puts repeated vomiting on its emergency list, and for a baby or toddler adds crying that cannot be soothed and refusing to feed or eat; for anything milder that worries you, call their doctor the same day. The CDC says there is no concussion-proof helmet, so a good helmet is not a reason to skip any of this. Later, the page adds, if a head injury has changed how your child thinks, feels or behaves, even long afterwards, that is worth raising with their doctor; and if your child or you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 in the US, or call Samaritans free on 116 123 in the UK, any time; elsewhere, your local emergency number.

Many people say a helmet is single-use, and the CDC’s helmet sheet says the same: the foam crushes in an impact, you may not be able to see it, and a crushed helmet cannot protect the head from the next one. The Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute, a US non-profit that studies helmets, adds a warning that matters with a child: when a helmet does its job the rider often says they did not hit their head, or not hard, and the thin outer shell can hide a dent in the foam. A dropped helmet, the institute says, is different: dropping one on a hard surface can crack the foam, and the cracks may be small and hard to see, so look carefully, including under the shell; any crack in the foam, any marks on the shell, any crushed patch at all, and it is finished. If you cannot tell, the institute says many makers will inspect a crashed helmet, and many will replace one for a small fee. On a helmet that was only dropped, people on the page split: two say any drop or knock compromises a helmet, so replace it to be safe, and one says a helmet dropped with no head inside it does not take the same force as a crash with a head in it, so use judgement. The CDC’s fit checks are simple enough to do at the door:

• The front edge sits low: one or two fingers’ width above the eyebrows, not tipped back.
• The side straps make a V shape under each ear, slightly in front of it.
• The chin strap sits under the chin, snug, with room for no more than one or two fingers.
• Ask your child to yawn wide. The helmet should pull down on their head. If it does not, tighten the chin strap.
• Once it is buckled, it should not move backwards, forwards or side to side.
• Look inside for a label saying it meets the US Consumer Product Safety Commission standard, and for the date it was made. In the UK and Europe, the label shows the European standard (EN 1078) instead, which the UK kept after leaving the EU.

A skate helmet is not automatically a bike helmet, one person points out, unless it is certified for both, and the CDC says to check a multi-use helmet for a label certifying it for biking.

On drives with your children, make a game of spotting motorbikes, bicycles and people on foot, and say out loud what you do when you see them, so that looking for small things on the road is normal long before they drive. Let the kids call out the bikes is plain about its weight: nothing in its conversations shows that spotting games in childhood make someone a safer driver years later, and no study of it was checked for the page; it offers the game because it costs nothing and gives you a reason to talk about the road. Many people describe some version of the game, with motorbikes, sometimes bicycles too, worth extra points. Keep it light and short, and keep the driving yours: the children do the spotting, and the driver keeps their eyes on the road; how to keep a lively game from pulling at the driver’s attention is not covered; if it does, stop the game. One person adds that seatbelts still come first.

Crossing the road is taught differently in the two countries, and the page says it differs elsewhere. In the US, a child-safety organisation’s advice is to look left, right and left again, and to keep looking all the way across. In the UK, the Green Cross Code in the Highway Code does not use a left-right order at all: look all around for traffic and listen, because traffic could come from any direction; one person on the page points out that in countries that drive on the left, such as the UK, a lifetime’s habit points the wrong way first. On age, the US organisation says children under 10 should cross with an adult, because until then they generally cannot judge the speed and distance of cars; the UK code says many children cannot judge that either, and that the parent decides when a child can cross alone. The UK code adds: hold their hands, and keep yourself between them and the traffic. The US organisation adds: make eye contact with drivers before crossing, and put phones and headphones away.

Drowning is quiet. A drowning person can’t shout or wave: they’re upright in the water, head tipped back, mouth at the surface, arms pressing down, going nowhere — and they have less than a minute. If you’re not sure, ask them if they’re okay; no answer means act. Reach first, throw second, and go in only if you swim well enough to come back with them. Drowning is quiet asks you to read its box first. If someone is in trouble in the water, shout for a lifeguard and for someone to call the emergency number — 911 in the US, 999 in the UK, your local number elsewhere. Then the order that saves the most lives: reach first, throw second, go last. Hand them a pole, a branch, a towel, a rope; throw a ring, a cooler lid, anything that floats, and tell them to hold it. Going in is a judgement about you, not a rule. A conscious drowning person will climb whoever arrives to reach air, and untrained helpers drown that way — nine separate warnings in its conversations carry it, the lifeguards among them loudest. If reaching and throwing are not possible and you are a strong swimmer, go: take something that floats and hold it out in front so they grab that and not you, come at them from behind, and if you are grabbed, go under on purpose — they let go of what sinks. If you are not a confident swimmer, your part is the shout, the call and the throw, and finding the person who can swim; a second casualty helps no one. Anyone who went under, or came out coughing or struggling to breathe, goes to a doctor the same day even if they seem fine an hour later, and coughing, breathlessness, unusual sleepiness or confusion afterwards means emergency care now. If they are out and not breathing, the page says the emergency dispatcher on the phone will walk you through CPR in real time.

The signs, from people’s experience checked against the research they cite: head low, mouth at the water line, tipped back; eyes glassy or unfocused, or closed; hair over the face and not pushed away; the body upright, vertical, like a fence pole, with no kick from the legs; the arms pressing down as if climbing an invisible ladder; trying to swim and going nowhere, or trying to roll onto the back and failing; and a rhythm of going under and coming up that lasts, the research on the instinctive drowning response says, twenty to sixty seconds before the person slips under and stays there. Some people say that loud shouting and splashing usually means a child playing or a swimmer in a panic who can still breathe, and the page says that is not a permission: one person was shouting for help and ignored, and another says shouting can come before the silence. Take every call for help as real, and know that the silent person needs you more, not less.

For children, some people say drowning takes seconds, is silent, and happens to small children whose parents are right there. So one adult is the watcher, for a set stretch of time, doing nothing else, not reading, not on the phone, not in a conversation, and then hands over to the next. Small children stay within arm’s reach in water, not eyesight. Children in water are loud, some people say, so when a child goes quiet, look. Some people warn inflatables and life jackets are not supervision: children slip out of them, tip face-down in them, or wander in because they feel safe in them. Water does not have to be deep, some people note: a wave pool, a slide’s landing, chest-deep water and a slip will do it.

Who these pages are not for. The photo page is about a child who wanders off in a crowd; a child being taken is a different question and a gap in its conversations. For a child who cannot speak yet, or has a disability that makes a rule or a stranger hard to manage, the photo and the number still help the people looking, but the sentence and the plan assume a child who can use them. The helmet page covers bicycle, scooter and skating helmets for children; motorbike helmets are a different standard and are not covered; and if your child has already been badly hurt, the page says it is not the one you need, and if they have just been hurt, its box comes first. The car game page will not help you frighten a child off motorbikes. And the drowning page is not for the person in the water, who has one job: onto your back, float, breathe; not for anyone who is not a strong swimmer and is thinking of going in, whose part is the shout, the call and the throw, and finding the person who can swim; and not for anyone reading it after a rescue to decide whether to bother with the doctor: bother, today.