Making Educated Decisions to Keep Children Safe on Your Farm
Mark Purschwitz, Wisconsin
Farm Safety and Health Specialist
While a farm is a nice place to raise a family, it is also a hazardous
workplace that can inflict serious or fatal injuries to them. Children
living on the farm are at the highest risk, but it is not uncommon for
visiting children to be injured or even killed. Every farm operator
must make important decisions about child safety on the farm.
Children are usually injured while in one of three situations: (1)
working; (2) not working but accompanying a parent or older sibling
in the workplace; or (3) not working and not being supervised or watched.
Each of these situations requires thought and diligence by adults to
prevent serious injury.
Children who are working must be given age-appropriate tasks. Each
child is different, and parents must think carefully about what that
child has been asked or told to do. Both the physical and mental aspects
of a job must be considered. Can the child physically do the job? Will
he or she be harmed by overexertion or heavy lifting? Are they required
to climb dangerous heights or to be in a position where they could have
a serious fall?
If operating a machine, can the child reach all the controls and have
the strength to operate them smoothly and swiftly if necessary? More
importantly, do they have the maturity to make critical decisions when
things go wrong? Can they anticipate problems or potentially dangerous
situations and take actions to avoid them? Do they understand the dangers
of the machine and know not to work on a machine while it is running?
Just because a child can reach the controls and handle a machine when
things are going smoothly does not mean the child can handle malfunctions
or emergencies well. Like any other operator or worker, children must
receive training and supervision.
Caution must be exercised when taking children into the workplace,
e.g. when accompanying a parent. Is the child in a safe place? Riding
on the fender or in the cab of a tractor is not a safe place; children
have fallen from both and been run over. Can the child be watched continuously?
There have been tragedies involving parents who were trying to work
while watching a toddler, suddenly realizing the toddler is nowhere
in sight, and finding the toddler dead due to a farm hazard. Although
finances and schedules may be a problem, often the wise thing to do
is to get a babysitter or to use some sort of day care, to keep the
child in a safe place. This also allows parents to concentrate on their
work.
Babysitting or day care is also important when young children would
otherwise be unsupervised around the farm. Creating safe play areas
is also important. With all the tractors, trucks, and implements in
motion on modern farms, curious children might easily be run over before
they are seen. Children need to be taught from an early age what areas
of the farm are “off limits,” and that machines are dangerous
and should be avoided. This issue is more important than ever, since
an increasing number of spouses work off the farm.
In addition to making good decisions, parents must be sure hazards
on the farm are controlled, both for the safety of children as well
as for adults. Guards and shields must be in place on machines. Tractors
should have ROPS (Roll-Over Protective Structures). Fences and barriers
must be used to keep people out of dangerous areas, and chemicals kept
in locked storage areas.
Information is available to help you make wise decisions about the
children on your farm. Your county Extension agricultural, 4-H/Youth
Development, or family living agent can help you think through decisions.
Two excellent sources of information on this and other farm safety topics
are the University of Minnesota’s farm safety clearinghouse web
page at http://safety.coafes.umn.edu/
and the University of Wisconsin Center for Agricultural Safety and Health
page, http://bse.wisc.edu/wiscash.
The University of Minnesota has developed the publication Safe Play
Areas which can be purchased in quantity or downloaded for individual
use, see http://safety.coafes.umn.edu.
They both have links to other information sources. The National Children’s
Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety, located in Marshfield,
has published the North American Guidelines for Children’s Agricultural
Tasks, which breaks down various farm jobs into individual tasks to
help you decide if there are parts of a job unsuited to a certain child.
The web sites are
http://research.marshfieldclinic.org/children/
and http://www.nagcat.org/. In
addition, the organization “Farm Safety 4 Just Kids” is dedicated
to preventing serious and fatal injuries to children on farms, and has
a wealth of materials.
It is important for farm families to make sure their priorities are
in order. Spending time with children is important, but not in an environment
where they can be seriously injured or killed. Having children develop
a good work ethic is important, but not if they will be seriously injured
or killed. Farming is not worth the death of a child.
|