(Photo provided by O

With hunting season in full swing, the parents made it a point to ask me if there were any safety rules I could suggest to older children who want to join their parents in this activity.

Thanks to hunter safety programs, the number of injuries that occur in hunting is much lower than in essentially all other sports.

Football, for example, causes 500 times more injuries than hunting. Even ping pong has twice as many injuries as hunting.

We don’t want even one hunting injury to occur, so here are some safety tips:

1. Children under the age of 15 who wish to shoot during the hunting season must take a hunter safety course.

This must be done before they can apply for a state hunting license, which is also required.

Children should always be accompanied by an adult who is also certified in hunter safety, and children under the age of 12 should not even be allowed to handle a firearm.

Always remember – never leave a child alone in the woods when you are hunting.

2. Wear fluorescent orange and have your child wear orange.

Although this is not required, it is strongly recommended.

This can reduce the chance of an accident or your child being mistaken for an animal by other hunters.

3. Older children shooting under adult supervision must follow three key rules.

— Always point your firearm in a safe direction and never at anything you don’t want to destroy.

— Always keep your finger on the trigger until you are ready to fire.

— Always keep the firearm unloaded with ammunition secured and stored separately when not in use or until you are in the hunting area and ready to fire. An additional and equally important point is to be sure not only of your target, but also of what may be beyond or behind that target.

4. What if your kids don’t go hunting but come across a gun in someone else’s house when they’re unsupervised?

Statistics estimate that guns are in more than a third of all American households with children.

If they come across a gun and are unsupervised, teach your children to: Stop what they’re doing.

Do not touch the gun.

Leave the area.

Tell an adult.

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What if you keep a gun in your home?

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Please store all ranged firearms in a locked safe or cabinet with trigger locks on those guns when not in use for hunting.

Make sure ammunition is also locked away and stored separately.

Firearms are now the leading cause of death in children and teens and 85% of firearm deaths in children 12 and younger occur in the home, so let’s not add to the death toll from a loaded firearm and unlocked in the house.

We hope these tips will be the safety checklist you need to ensure a safe hunting season for you and your child.

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Lewis First, MD, is chief of pediatrics at the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine. You can also Catch “Children first” weekly on WOKO 98.9FM and NBC5.