Safety Systems

 

Keeping track of six lively children was never easy, but I had a lot of fun inventing ways to keep them safe. My favorite is the monkey hats. There is a picture earlier on this blog of all my kids in monkey style baseball hats in their favorite color in matching tee-shirts. We stood out. It was obvious that they were loved. Most of all they were so darn cute. A few years later we were going to be traveling for an extended period of time. I wanted something like that, but no one was willing to wear monkey hats at that point. 

I worked at a summer day camp during college, and I remembered the power of the whistle. I also came across an article that praised the benefits of a whistle if someone should be attacked. Putting it all together I bought all the kids a whistle in their favorite color. Adults got black whistles. Boys got blue cords. Girls got yellow cords. The plan was if they heard the whistle they were to hurry back to a parent. If they got lost, or were afraid for any reason they were to blow their whistle and a parent would hurry to them. 

Turns out the one day we needed it we weren’t wearing them. Iris was fascinated by an exhibit about satellites and failed to exit the museum with us. We noticed immediately having counted noses outside, but it was still terrifying. I think it’s a good system, but it was never tested under fire. I should have started using it earlier when the older ones still liked Mom’s ideas.