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Safety in Public Restrooms
Charlie Spencer, Family Safety Advisory Board member, gives advice on the topic of "Safety in Public Restrooms".
A concerned parent asks:
"My husband and seven year old daughter sometimes go on road trips without me. They have to stop once or twice to go to a restroom. When my daughter was younger, my husband could simply take her into the men's restroom with him, if necessary. Now that my daughter is seven, we think that she is getting too old to be paraded in front of the urinals in the men's restroom, yet too young to go into the women's public restroom alone. I was wondering if you had some creative and sensible ways to deal with this. Can you give any advice?"
Charlie Spencer's response:
"In regard to the father-daughter trip and restrooms, here are several suggestions:
Cover the girl's head with a sweater or jacket to block her view as dad enters the men's room. Go in a stall and put her down and then wait outside the stall. Follow the same procedure with the sweater on the way out.
Another method that I used with my own daughters was to pull into a small rest stop where I could go in and check out the facility before my daughter would use it to make sure no one else was in there and there wasn't another exit.
If all else fails, ask a lady who is taking her own child to the restroom, if she would watch over the girl in the restroom. The father could wait outside for her."
Parent's response:
"I am also curious to know, what are your suggestions for when the father has to use the bathroom as well? At my daughter's age, he is not completely comfortable taking her into the stall with him. However, it seems dangerous to let her wait outside a public restroom. They have left on their trip and everything has worked out fine so far. He did take a whistle along for her to wear around her neck in case she needed to wait outside a restroom.
Charlie Spencer's response:
The whistle is an excellent idea, as are walkie-talkies.
In response to your question about the need for her father to use the restroom, I would go to a small business, like a real estate office, to locate a restroom built for one person at a time. Your daughter could stand right outside the door. I run a funeral home and have had people come in just to use the restroom when they have a child with them. They asked if we could just keep an eye on the child for a minute. It was no problem, we were glad to help. There are a lot of nice people who are willing to help others; you just have to know how to select the right place to find them.
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