Consumer Affairs toy safety workshop offers tips for parents

As parents and grandparents roam the toy aisles at their local stores to find Christmas presents, the choices can be overwhelming. But the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs is hoping anyone buying toys will keep safety in mind.

It held a toy safety workshop Tuesday for child care providers. Mary White is with the Head Start program in Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties, which is responsible for more than 1,600 children on any given day. "We plan to do some training for the staff as well as the parents," she says of the information she learned at the workshop.

Some of the information many parents have probably heard before, like using a toilet paper tube as a way to measure toys and parts that are choking hazards. Maria Audas, with Consumer Affairs, held up a tube and pushed a ping pong ball through it as part of the workshop. "Ages 3 and under, pretty much," she told the participants is the target group for being watchful for choking hazards. "Ball falls through, it's too small. So think ping pong ball, anything around that size, is going to be too small."

But there was probably some new information that parents might not know. For example, the "drop test", which tests toys to see if small parts will break off when the toy is dropped. A toy that breaks when dropped could also leave sharp edges that could cut a child.

And while parents may be vigilant about buying toys with no small parts for children under 3, they might not think about the toys of their older children.

"Keeping toys separated, age-appropriateness, is huge, no matter if you're talking about a child care center or at home," Audas says. "If you have a 10-year-old and a 5-year-old, knowing which toys are appropriate for each child, and then things like small parts and reading the labeling, that's something every parent can do when they go shopping this season."

Toys that end up being dangerous, or even potentially dangerous, usually end up being recalled. But those problems are often not known until the toy is already on the market and children are playing with it, so it's important for parents to check them out first.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has a list of toy safety tips here.