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I just brought my daughter from her annual checkup. As always, I filled out the questionnaire. It asked the usual questions about her development and my concerns, do we have smoke detectors, do we smoke, does she eat paint chips, etc. I noticed that there was no question about guns being in the home.
In the past it's always been one of the questions and I've always left it blank. The first time the doctor asked if there was a reason I had omitted it and I replied that I had skipped nothing, considered it none of her concern as it's not health related and I consider it an invasive question not worth answering.
Has anyone else noticed this question disappearing from forms? Have your doctors ever emphasized the question in speaking of your child's health?
If you are a responsible gun owner who knows to lock up your guns and store ammunition and firearms separately, the question may seem intrusive. However, parental negligence results in children gaining access to guns with tragic results. Preventing that is definitely health related.
If you are taking appropriate measures to protect your children, why would you not want to let your child's doctor know that?
Why is that no different from your pediatrician advising you about bicycle helmets and infant car seats?
We had firearms in our home when our sons were growing up. They were kept locked up until they were old enough to learn how to handle them safely. They now have guns in their own homes. The older son just got a gun safe to make it easier to protect his 3 year old. The younger son will do the same -- his daughter is only eight months old.
Do you know whether your child visits homes of friends or relatives who do not secure firearms properly?
If you are a responsible gun owner who knows to lock up your guns and store ammunition and firearms separately, the question may seem intrusive.
We are a responsible gun owning family who locks up our guns and stores our ammunition and firearms separately. I've been asked that question twice. Once by a police officer and once by a mother dropping her son off to play at my house. Both times, I answered honestly, "Yes, we have guns. We keep them locked up in a gun safe." Both people were satisfied with my answer. I didn't mind answering because I felt both people had a right to an answer to that question. But I wouldn't feel a pediatrician would have a right to know if I owned guns unless the pediatrician was sending his/her child to play at my house.
Asking questions about child safety has been standard at well child visits for a very long time. Questions such as the use of car seats and bicycle helmets, safe medications and poisons storage, water safety, gun safety, smoke and carbon monoxide detector use, etc. etc.. Our pediatrician has always asked those questions, and all the child health environments I have worked in have asked a variation of those too.
The AAP has many guidelines for child health workers regarding questions and education for parents who are gun owners, and it's not new.
I've seen those questions on various forms as well -and also questions about physical and even emotional abuse in the home.
In fact, my husband was asked if he was ever physically abused at home the last time he went to the doctor. It was especially funny considering I was standing right there. It was a question on a form that they HAVE TO ask, and my husband, who outweighs me by about fifty pounds and has a huge barrel chest and muscled up forearms nearly died laughing when she asked, and then he grabbed her arm and whispered, "Please help me."
Honestly, I can see the need to ask probing questions but there's something about the bureaucratic approach that discomforts me. Say my husband WAS the victim of abuse in the home - do you think he'd say so with me standing right there? I don't know - it was just odd.
Uh no, I've never had to answer any questions like that. They give us a handout at each well child about car seats and milestones. I can't imagine them asking about guns.
Everyone here has guns, hunting is huge, so is target shooting. Middle school kids here regularly go hunting. Some places in my county it takes 45min up mountains for the cops to get there. You live up there you are on your own and everyone else is armed.
Well my kids are too old for those questionnaires to be given to me recently. But I did get them. And I did answer them. And I did get the stats about gun accidents in homes.
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