One of the unspoken horrors of being a parent is realizing that young children have less-than-zero sense self-preservation.
That electrical socket? May as well be a magical doorway to Narnia to a child. A yellow “toxic” sign? An avant-garde Spongebob Squarepants. Grandma’s bottle of pills? A ball pit for their miniature Bluey toys.
The scariest part?
Those are just the obvious (to parents) dangers.
There’s a whole host of hazards lurking beneath the surface of seemingly harmless everyday objects — and that problem is only exacerbated when Santa Claus introduces a whole new host of “harmless” toys to your household.
Because of that, one Florida doctor is going certifiably viral after she shared some of the most dangerous presents that parents should avoid on Christmas — unless an emergency room visit is on their holiday itinerary.
As chronicled by a number of outlets, including Fox News and Australian news site Kidspot, Meghan Martin, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, took to Instagram to share a number of popular items that concerned parents should be aware of.
As Fox noted, the Instagram Reel has been viewed by over 8 million users, and it’s easy to see why when you see how innocuous this list seems at first blush.
The top item on Martin’s list? Any item with button batteries, which includes a shockingly comprehensive list of toys.
Would you get any of these gifts for a child?
“There are fatalities every year, unfortunately, from button batteries,” Martin said, according to Fox. Martin claimed that the batteries were especially problematic because they usually come in compartments held together by small screws that can easily be jiggered open.
Water beads made up the second big problem item that Martin identified.
Typically packaged as colorful large beads filled with a liquid, these are often marketed to children as a sensory toy.
The concern here is an obvious one: At first glance, these beads can easily be confused for a colorful candy. If swallowed, they can cause a whole host of life-threatening problems.
The Florida doctor did a good job explaining why her third item, electric scooters and “hoverboards,” were an unsafe gift for children.
“We’re giving kids the power to kind of go fast and we know that kids don’t always make the best decisions,” Martin said.
The fourth item she warned against was trampolines. Anyone who’s seen pro wrestling knows the dangers — both actual and staged — of jumping around a trampoline, even when highly trained professionals are participating in a choreographed fight.
Imagine what children could do in that same setting.
The final item that Martin called out was any toy that includes magnets. The dangers posed by the magnets are similar to the dangers presented by button batteries.
That’s a fair list, and at the risk of sounding a tad too Grinch-like, let this writer add one more Christmas suggestion: It’s okay to take a little focus off of presents — both the safe and dangerous sorts — and focus on what Christmas was originally meant to celebrate.
That’s the birth of Jesus Christ, and there’s absolutely nothing dangerous about celebrating that gift.
