Hello.  My name is Keith and I’m a father of two children who absolutely amaze me with the stupid things that they sometimes do.  Now, I’m not saying that my children are dumb, mind you, but I’ve noticed over the years that all kids have tendencies to do dangerous things on impulse and it is a serious problem in the United States and around the world.

Why a Kid's Safety Book?

For example, I’ve caught my oldest daughter Alyssa playing with lighters, candles, and other forms of fire at least a half-dozen times over the past month.  My wife and I tried almost everything we could think of to explain why kids should not play with fire but nevertheless, our game room was ablaze less than a week later.  Now, don’t panic…my kids are fine and our house is still standing.  Nobody was hurt (except the carpet), but it really shouldn’t take my daughters getting terrified to realize this important life lesson...fire can quickly grow out of control.

They were incredibly lucky and at first, I couldn’t fathom why my oldest daughter would try to light a tissue on fire to see what would happen.  After doing a little bit of research, however, I learned from the CDC that an average of 17 US children end up in the hospital with accidental injuries every minute and at least one of them dies each hour.  That’s why I’m here before you today; with your help I’m going to publish Playing with Fire & Keeping Our Kids Safe.  My goal is to take dozens of stories such as the one above and turn them into a guidebook for both parents and children alike.  

 A Breakdown of Playing With Fire

We all believe the philosophy, "It will never happen to me or my family," yet it does to someone...almost twenty-five thousand times per day one of our kids are headed for the emergency room.  By writing a book that gives real-life examples that all of us can relate to, it provides that "shock and awe" factor that kids need to really take these lessons to heart.  After each chapter story, relevant life lessons and things for our children to watch out for will also be included so that they can see for their very eyes that it's not okay to play with fire, jump out of tall trees, accept stupid dares or walk up to total strangers.   

The chapters in Playing with Fire are based straight off of the most common injuries and problems reported to the CDC at this time.-

1)      Playing with Fire

2)      Fights and Bullying

3)      Running, Jumping, and Climbing

4)      Drugs and Alcohol

5)      I Dare You to…

6)      Teenage Driving

7)      Understanding Weapons

8)      Sex and Dating

9)      Avoiding Depression

10)   Respecting Electricity

11)   The Choking Game

12)   Talking to Strangers

13)   Know your Surroundings

14)   Handling Peer Pressure

15)   Safety Around Animals

Each chapter will essentially be broken down into three distinct sections-

1)      Real-life stories of tragic events that could have been avoided if the child/children involved were better informed.  While I hate to use the phrase “scare tactics”, that is essentially what this section will do because it often takes a true story that our kids can relate to in order for them to see the bigger picture.

2)      The cold, hard facts of how many children are injured each year, the time that it takes for these types of accidents to happen, where these accidents usually occur, and why our kids do not see these types of activities as a true danger until it’s too late.  I’ll provide every possible statistic so that parents will have more than enough ammunition when talking about these subjects.

3)      Advice from leading experts on how to convince our children to avoid these types of activities all together.  

How your Donations Help

Obviously, there is quite an expense involved in putting together a title of this magnitude.  Even though I have the foundations in place for each chapter, I still have several interviews left to do with emergency room doctors, parents, and child safety experts.  The last thing I want to do throughout this process is to cheat or cut corners so your help is essential.

If the project exceeds my $12,000 goal, then the excess donations will be used to expedite this project and make it the priority that it deserves to be.  Throughout my research, I keep going back to those original statistics that I gave and it makes me think, "Wow, tens of thousands of kids have been injured or killed since I worked on this the other day.  What if my book and the website were already live...could I have prevented even one of those accidents?"

My gut tells me yes; get the material out there in front of parents and maybe we really can make a difference.  With your help, that's exactly what I'll do.  Thanks so much for reading my proposal and if you believe in my project, then please send your friends and family to this page.