Author’s practical guidance
Hot: the stove, the kettle, the cup you just put down
Source named in the book: AAP guidance on injury prevention
Most burns to small children happen in kitchens and bathrooms, from liquids rather than flames, and usually from something an adult was holding a second earlier.
Say this now
“Hot. That one hurts. Hands behind your back.”
Three short pieces, and the third gives the hands somewhere to be.
“You can feel my cup from the outside — careful, it's warm.”
Supervised warm builds what "hot" then rides on.
Do this
- Turn pot handles inward every single time you cook.
- Use the back burners and keep the front ones for cold pans.
- Put mugs in the middle of the table, never the edge.
- Unplug and stow the flat iron — it stays hot long after it looks finished.
- Say the word every time you meet the thing: oven, radiator, kettle, car seat buckle in summer.
Avoid this
- "You'll burn yourself!" A prediction they cannot picture, so it changes nothing.
- Letting them touch something warm to teach the lesson. It teaches fear, unreliably.
- Carrying a hot drink and a child at the same time.
If it repeats
Know the first response before you need it: cool running water for twenty minutes, no ice, no butter. A burn that blisters, is bigger than their palm, or is on a face, hand or joint — same-day call.
Why the book suggests this
Most burns to small children happen in kitchens and bathrooms, from liquids rather than flames, and usually from something an adult was holding a second earlier. The danger is domestic and it is nearly always ordinary.
"Hot" is also a word a child can learn early and use well, because unlike most safety concepts it has a feeling attached. That makes it one of the few rules in this block a three-year-old can genuinely carry.
From this collection
Same Words: Their Own Body
45 prepared situations in this family area.