As a race, one of the reasons human beings have evolved to living in communities is protection and safety. Even today, one of the main things we look for when hunting for a house is whether the locality is safe and if security is tight enough. If there are children in the family, it becomes all the more important to double-check the choice of house to ensure that there is no scope for harm or danger.

But how would you go about ensuring child safety? What makes a particular residential community safe for children? Read on for some tips on how to guarantee safety at home for your child.

1. Security workforce

Check whether the safety and security system of the community is in place and is working effectively. If there are no loopholes and prevention is the focus rather than the cure, you may have some peace of mind. Sealing off the community to intruders and making the entry process stricter will ensure that external threat is minimized. This can only be done by an efficient security force that remains alert round-the-clock and pays special attention to child safety.

2. Supervision through technology

Apart from the human workforce, check if every nook and cranny of the locality – including the elevators, gym, swimming pool, terrace, children’s play areas – is covered by CCTV cameras. See if there is a secure system for the security themselves: sometimes the protectors themselves might turn into perpetrators. A biometric system that makes attendance mandatory, a computer system that monitors exits and entries at every gate, safety alarms at regular intervals, etc. should be installed.

3. Open conversation

Talk to your child. Ask them how their day was and if they came across any strange faces. It is also important to have the ‘safe and unsafe touch’ conversation with them. In a gated community, where there are too many people to remember, it is all the more important to make sure that chances of danger or abuse are minimized.

4. Accessibility of facilities

In gated communities, it does help that a lot of facilities are available at a walking distance. You can trust your children with a group of friends and send them out to play without fear of them getting lost or kidnapped. So, check if the community you’re choosing comes with the facilities your child’s needs.

5. Support system

Love thy neighbor, but not before you get to know them. Once you do, form a small network or support system of parents within the community so that you can be assured of the presence of at least one supervising adult at any given time of the day.

Nothing is too much trouble when it comes to ensuring child safety. Security is a basic need for every human being; luxury and grandeur can come later. One question that arises here is this: are gated communities safer for children? While we cannot give an objective reply to this, it is true that gated communities have so many facilities and security systems that people tend to get complacent.

This can be extremely dangerous, considering that alertness is a weapon that guards us against danger. Also, the presence of countless people from innumerable apartments makes it difficult to separate the unfamiliar from the outsider.

However, all these loopholes can be closed if parents themselves pitch in and stay observant instead of relying completely on the security system. Having a strong support system always helps, and the social network will also be a safety net for your children. So keep your fears at bay and check out our luxury gated communities where utmost care is taken not only to ensure child safety but for the safety of every resident.