Objective: Research on children's risk of injury reveals that parent and child factors are often interrelated. This study examined relations between children's risk taking, parent appraisal of this risk taking, and children's rate of injury in youth 8 and 9 years old. Methods: Responses to questionnaires and laboratory tasks were used to examine…

The process of integrating visual information and planning a safe crossing is cognitively demanding for many young children. We assessed relations between traffic characteristics, aspects of children's executive functioning (EF), and pedestrian behavior, with the aim being to determine whether well-developed EF would predict safer pedestrian…

This study compared reactions of mothers and fathers to the risk taking behavior of sons and daughters. Mother-father pairs (N = 52) imagined their 2-year-old boy or girl behaving in risky ways in common home situations that could, and did, result in injury. Emotional and parenting reactions to the behaviors were assessed before and after injury.…

Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for children. Prior research has implicated both child behavioral attributes and parent supervisory patterns as risk factors. The present study assessed interactions between these two risk factors and determined whether supervision moderates the relation between child attributes and injury.…

School-age children's self-reported risk compensation (greater risk-taking when wearing safety gear compared to when not doing so) was investigated using 6 common play situations. Children responded to hypothetical scenarios by rating intended risk-taking when wearing safety gear and not doing so, and by providing explanations for their behavior.…

Assessed beliefs of 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds about the injury risk presented by various play behaviors in stories. Found that children rated boys as having lower likelihood of injury than girls during the same activity. Children were more accurate in identifying the sex of the character in stories of boys' injuries than girls' injuries, and…

Unintentional injuries are the number one cause of death in childhood, and boys experience two to four times more injuries than girls. The present study examined whether mothers differed in their speed to intervene and the nature of their intervention responses depending on the sex of the child, the injury history of the child, the level of risk…

This study examined mothers' teaching about home-safety issues to 24-30 month and 36-42 month old children, explored the relationship of teaching strategies to parenting styles, and assessed how these factors are related to children's risk of unintentional injury. A structured interview assessed home-safety issues relevant to falls, burns, cuts,…

Examined mothers' interventions of videotaped children engaging in injury-risk playground activities. Found mothers of daughters were more likely to judge behaviors as posing injury risk and intervened more frequently and quickly than mothers of sons; intervention speed positively correlated with children's injury history and risk-taking;…

This study examined the contribution of cognitive and emotion-based factors in predicting school-age children's risk-taking decisions when the social-situational context did, and did not, pressure for risk-taking. Using drawings of play situations that depicted three possible paths of travel that varied in injury risk and pitted convenience…