• Check your list of emergency numbers. Do you have current contact information listed, and do the people whom you've asked to help in case of emergency recall that they are your back-up? Do they have the information they need? (Alarm code? Your cell phone number? The current pediatrician's number?)

• If you don't have emergency phone numbers posted by each telephone, post them now. Also put your address on the telephone. A flustered grandmother or a new babysitter may have trouble remembering your address in a true emergency.

• Prepare an emergency notebook to keep in the kitchen. The notebook should hold instructions as to what the family should do in case of the most likely emergencies in your part of the country. (If you're in a community where people are sometimes evacuated because of coastal flooding, you should list emergency routes and relevant phone numbers, for example.) Every family should have an out-of-state friend or relative designated as an emergency contact, and their contact information belongs in the book. (In an emergency where you have time to take a few things, this notebook should go with you.)

• How to turn off the utilities, and whom to call (plumber, power company, gas company, etc.) in case of a household emergency also belongs in your notebook.

• Review with your children what to do under various circumstances. Advice should be geared to the age of the child. Who will pick them up in case of an emergency school dismissal? Where is your family meeting spot in case of a household fire? With little ones, playing practice games is better than lecturing. "How do we get out of the house in a fire? Let's do it!"

• Make safety issues a routine part of life:

  • Always wear your own seat belt in the car, and be certain the children wear theirs.

  • Cross the street at corners and with the appropriate light.

  • If you see a dog you don't know, demonstrate for your child that you always ask permission of the owner before petting it.

• Always express verbal support of police officers, fire fighters, and teachers who are carrying out safety exercises such as fire drills. Children need to learn a respect for authority, and you must instill in them the importance of taking safety messages seriously.

Kate Kelly is a mother of three and the author of the just-published Living Safe in an Unsafe World, The Complete Guide to Family Preparedness (NAL, 2000).

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