Prepare Your Kids’ Ears for Back to School

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Parents and teachers, back-to-school bells are ringing.

Have you taken steps to protect the ears and hearing of your children and students?

Noise-induced hearing loss—sounds of packed hallways and cafeterias, band practices and concerts, and sporting events—can permanently damage hearing.

Thankfully, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders has an awesome bilingual campaign: El mundo es ruidoso. Proteja la audición de sus hijos. (It’s a Noisy Planet. Protect Their Hearing.).

The campaign helps parents and teachers promote healthy hearing habits:

Noisy Planet’s Teacher Toolkit. This toolkit helps teachers instruct preteens about the causes and prevention of noise-induced hearing loss. It provides easy-to-use resources and step-by-step instructions for building fun activities into lesson plans and curricula.

Resources include a PowerPoint presentation and four training videos with in-depth descriptions of each activity, including the required equipment, number of student volunteers needed, and the estimated time for each activity.

Noisy Planet’s Back-to-School Checklist. Here’s how parents and students can prepare for loud school-time sounds. Tips include “give your children earplugs or earmuffs to carry in their backpacks,” as well as “schedule a hearing test for your children.”

Parents can find many other helpful tips, too.

“When packing up your kid’s backpacks with important school goodies, remember to pack hearing protection,” according to the campaign. “Be sure to encourage healthy hearing habits all-year long.”