Playgrounds and outdoor play equipment offer kids fresh air, friends, and exercise. So it's important for parents to make sure that faulty equipment, improper surfaces, and careless behavior don't ruin the fun.

Each year, more than 200,000 kids are treated in hospital ERs for playground-related injuries. Many of these could have been prevented with the proper supervision.

You can make the playground entertaining and safe for your kids by checking equipment for potential hazards and following some simple safety guidelines.

And teaching kids how to play safely is important: If they know the rules of the playground, they're less likely to get hurt.

Adult Supervision

Adult supervision can help prevent injuries by making sure kids properly use playground equipment and don't engage in unsafe behavior around it. If an injury does occur, an adult can assist the child and administer any needed first aid right away.

Kids should always have adult supervision on the playground. Young kids (and sometimes older ones) can't always gauge distances properly and aren't capable of foreseeing dangerous situations by themselves. Older kids like to test their limits on the playground, so it's important for an adult to be there to keep them in check.

Before you visit a playground, check to make sure that play areas are designed to allow an adult to clearly see kids while they're playing on all the equipment.

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It's not clear at what age kids begin to dream, but even toddlers may speak about having dreams - pleasant ones and scary ones. While almost every child has an occasional frightening or upsetting dream, nightmares seem to peak during the preschool years when fear of the dark is common. But older kids (and even adults) have occasional nightmares, too.

Nightmares aren't completely preventable, but parents can set the stage for a peaceful night's rest. That way, when nightmares do creep in, a little reassurance and comfort from you can quickly restore your child's peace of mind.

Helping kids conquer this common childhood fear also equips them to overcome other scary things that might arise down the road.

When Do Nightmares Happen?

Nightmares - like most dreams - occur during the stage of sleep when the brain is very active and sorting through experiences and new information for learning and memory. The vivid images the brain is processing can seem as real as the emotions they might trigger.

This part of sleep is known as the rapid eye movement or REM stage because the eyes are rapidly moving beneath closed eyelids. Nightmares tend to happen during the second half of a night's sleep, when REM intervals are longer.

When kids awaken from a nightmare, its images are still fresh and can seem real. So it's natural for them to feel afraid and upset and to call out to a parent for comfort.

By about preschool age, kids begin to understand that a nightmare is only a dream - and that what's happening isn't real and can't hurt them. But knowing that doesn't prevent them from feeling scared. Even older kids feel frightened when they awaken from a nightmare and may need your reassurance and comfort.

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Even healthy kids get hurt and sick sometimes. In some cases, you will know that you need to head straight to the emergency room (ER) at the nearest hospital. In other cases, it's more difficult to determine whether an injury or an illness needs the attention of a medical professional or can be treated at home.

Different problems require different levels of care. And when your child needs some sort of medical help, you have many options:

• Handle the problem at home. Many minor injuries and illnesses, including some cuts, certain types of rashes, coughs, colds, scrapes, and bruises, can be handled with home care and over-the-counter (OTC) treatments.
• Call your doctor. If you're unsure of the level of medical care your child needs, your doctor - or a nurse who works in the office - can help you decide what steps to take and how.
• Visit an urgent care center. An urgent care center can be a good option for non-emergencies at night and on weekends when your doctor may not be in the office. At these centers, you can usually get things like X-rays, stitches, and care for minor injuries that aren't life threatening yet require medical attention on the same day.
• Visit a hospital emergency room. An ER - also called an emergency department (ED) - can handle a wide variety of serious problems, such as severe bleeding, head trauma, seizures, meningitis, breathing difficulties, dehydration, and serious bacterial infections.
• Call 911 for an ambulance. Some situations are so serious that you need the help of trained medical personnel on the way to the hospital. These might include if your child: has been in a car accident, has a head or neck injury, has ingested too much medication and is now hard to rouse, or is not breathing or is turning blue. In these cases, dial 911 for an ambulance.

As a parent, it can be hard to make these judgment calls. You don't want to rush to the ER if it isn't really an emergency and can wait until a doctor's appointment. On the other hand, you don't want to hesitate to get medical attention if your child needs treatment right away. As your kids grow - and inevitably incurs sicknesses and calamities - you'll learn to trust yourself to decide when it's an emergency.

Remember that in cases when you know the problem is minor, it's best to contact your child's doctor, go to an urgent care center, or handle it at home. Sometimes, ERs can be crowded and it can take a long time for minor problems to be treated.

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When rain puts a damper on playing outside and cabin fever is driving everyone bonkers, these quick play-and-pretend ideas will keep kids occupied and happy for hours:

Put on a Show With Homemade Puppets

We've all created puppets out of cotton socks, paper bags, markers, and a handful of buttons. But kids can get really creative with a cool grab-bag of puppetry accessories that you gather and store in a special Puppet Box. As you're cleaning the house or shopping at grocery, thrift, or dollar stores, keep an eye out for fun adornments for homemade puppets.

Collect and buy: glitter, dried beans, sequins, tinsel, pipe cleaners, string, ribbons, yarn, buttons and appliques, holiday decorations, stickers, seashells, etc. (beware of small objects, though, that could pose a choking hazard for small children).

Also keep your Puppet Box stocked with must-have items like glue, scissors, washable markers, Popsicle sticks, and a needle and thread (when sewing, supervise young kids or do sewing projects yourself). Also, keep a few small cardboard boxes - folded and flattened for easy storage - to cut out and color for nifty background scenes and props.

Build a Fort

Get out some old sheets, blankets, or comforters and drape them over the living or dining room furniture. (Be extra careful around breakable and valuable items.) Use ribbons from your sewing kit, or hair scrunchies and hair ties to secure the bottoms of the fabrics to chairs and tables.

Have kids create a secret password that allows outsiders (e.g., Mom and Dad, siblings) into the private hideaway. Give your kid a battery-operated camping lantern, sleeping bags, camping-themed books, and flashlights for that added outdoorsy appeal.

Create a Rainy-Day Dress-Up Chest

Keep an eye out for interesting old clothes items and accessories around the house, on discount racks, and at dollar stores or thrift shops. Stock up on scarves, funky hats (cowboy hats, sombreros, team baseball caps, construction hard hats, etc.), costume jewelry, shoes (adults' and kids'), shirts (oversized white shirts for doctors' lab coats, Hawaiian shirts for a luau, etc.), dresses, skirts, and jackets. Collect any piece of clothing or accessory that could lend itself to make-believe.

Put the items in a sturdy plastic storage bin or cardboard box. Then pull out the dress-up chest for plenty of imagination-powered entertainment during rainy or super-snowy days.

Make Thank-You Gifts

Kids often like to thank their caregivers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers, babysitters, neighbors, and childcare workers. Bake a few batches of cookies that your child can lovingly decorate and wrap with colored plastic wrap and ribbons; or create thank-you cards on regular old printer paper or construction paper. Add special glued-on adornments like family photos, ribbons, glitter, and buttons (again, beware of small objects that could pose choking hazards for babies and toddlers).

Help improve kids' spelling and letter identification skills by letting them type and print out their own messages in fancy fonts on the computer. Instead of doing crafts just to get through the day, this project will help kids feel like their time and efforts are being spent on a greater purpose - giving to someone they care about.