Christmas Day is right around the corner and parents will be finishing up holiday shopping for their kids.
Jeff Todd, Prevent Blindness President, is reminding parents about purchasing age-appropriate toys.
“Keep young children from toys that are meant for older children. Supervise your children while they’re playing. Supervise their crafting projects so if they’re playing with scissors or glue things like that they can be dangerous to a child’s eyesight,” says Todd.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, thousands of children 14 years or younger suffer from various forms of eye injuries, even blindness from unsafe toys each year.
Todd says most of these accidents can be prevented.
“I wouldn’t say any particular age is important to keep an eye out for, but really keep as your child ages, continue to remind yourself that any toy or anything that any activity has a potential for eye injury and we should really keep that in our mind when we’re buying or giving a child a toy,” says Todd.
As parents make those final purchases experts remind you to read all labels and warnings.
Look for the American Society for Testing and Materials labeling, or ASTM, and always supervise your children.
“There’s so many so many Joys to playing with toys into the holidays. The last thing we want to do is ruin our holiday because a child has any sort of accident. But certainly an eye an eye injury that could potentially lead to permanent vision loss or blindness.”
If you would like to know more about ways to make sure you are purchasing safe toys for your kids, you can click here.