With winter here, i have found myself cooling off a lot of parents who have questions about their children’s safety when ice skating — both indoors and outdoors.

Almost 20,000 children are being seen for skating injuries on a yearly basis, so this week i’ll glide through a few skating safety tips.

1. First, children should be allowed to skate on only approved surfaces. This means areas that have been cleared by local police or parks and recreation departments – or at the least by a responsible adult. Ice needs to be at least four to six inches thick to support one child, let alone an adult.

2. Protect the head. As to equipment, a recent study on head injuries found more injuries occurring in recreational ice skaters than in those using in-line skates or skateboards. This means a helmet should be strongly considered — especially if you are just starting out. Skates should have sharp blades so they can’t get caught in ruts on the ice causing a fall and should also fit properly if you want to prevent an accident. Putting socks inside skates to pad them for a hand-me-down from an older to younger sib is not a good idea.

3. No chewing gum or candy allowed. These should be thrown away before skating so that a child doesn’t choke on something if hit by someone else or so that the sticky material doesn’t end up on the ice and cause someone else to fall.

4. Instruction is important. If your child is starting out, ice skating lessons are the safest way to learn. If that is not possible, make sure you or someone who skates well can teach your child how to safely fall backwards and forwards and how to get up from a fall on the ice. Keeping a safe space between themselves and other skaters is also a good idea.

5. Know your child’s skating location(s). When outside, make sure your children tell you when and where they are going out if it involves pond skating. No child or teen should go out onto outside ice alone — always insist that a friend go with them if you cannot.

6. Emergency recommendations:

¯ If you or a child should fall through the ice, stretch your arms over the ice and push yourself forward on your stomach to try to crawl back onto solid ice.

¯ Try to stay calm and do not attempt to swim since this causes the body to lose heat much faster than trying to stay as still as possible and may help prevent hypothermia from occurring.

¯ If a pet falls through the ice, tell your child not to attempt to rescue the pet themselves, but to go get help.

Hopefully, tips like these will not have you or your child out on thin ice when it comes to keeping them safe while skating this winter.

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Lewis first, md, is chief of pediatrics at the golisano children’s hospital at uvm health and chair of the department of pediatrics at the university of vermont’s larner college of medicine. You can also catch “first with kids” weekly on woko 98.9Fm and mynbc 5.