Choose Safe And Fun Toys

Last year, the Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled more than a hundred children's products because of safety hazards.

So how do you know the toys you're getting for your kids are age appropriate and safe?

The Early Show consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen visits the CPSC headquarters in Bethesda, Md., to find out.

CPSC Chairman Hal Stratton says the latest recall is from Stravina Operating Co.

"This is a recall for lead in children's necklaces and zipper pulls," he says, pointing out they pose lead poisoning risks. "Six million pieces are being recalled. It's the kind of thing if a child puts it in its mouth it could be very dangerous."

Fortunately, he says no injuries have been reported. If you have these items in your home, his advice is to get rid of them fast.

"You could take them back and try to get your money back, but these aren't very expensive items. The safest thing to do is just throw them away and go on," he says.

The problem is that jewelry contains high levels of accessible lead, he says. "Lead is a huge issue for the kids and here for us. It's the accessible lead that's a problem. These have accessible lead and also have lead paint, which has been banned for quite some time. I don't know how these got through the system, but we caught it."

Last year, there were 109 recalls of children's products and toys and 161,100 children were treated in emergency rooms because of toy-relate injuries.

"We had 16 children as fatalities last year from toys," Stratton says. "We don't want any children's deaths from toys. That's our goal here at the CPSC. The good news is that it is down from the older days when it was about 30 a year. So we've cut that number about in half and are continuing to work very hard to bring it down even more.

"The thing that can help the most is parental supervision because about a quarter of those deaths were caused by tricycles going into swimming pools or traffic. That's from lack of supervision. If parents will help, we'll get that number down, and hopefully to zero."

Stratton says small parts and balloons pose the biggest risk to children.

"When parents buy toys for their young children, 3 and under," he says, "make sure they buy the toys that are age appropriate, as they should with all ages, but particularly with young kids, and make sure there are no small parts on those that are accessible for the kids. That's where we see most of the injuries."

His main advice for parents is to read the toy labels and supervise the children when they play with the toys.

"Make sure you read those age appropriateness labels, because all of us think our kids are more advanced than other kids," he says. "Please don't buy products that are too advanced for them. Keep them in their age group.

"The one thing that can really help the most on all of these injuries and deaths is parental supervision. So, it's not only supervision in buying the toys, which is the first step, but once they get the toys.

"When you get the older kids when they start to play with things, where they pretend and have toy power tools, watch them and supervise them. Same thing when you get bigger. Make sure kids are wearing helmets. When they get up into sports, you want to be there, be supervising them and teach them how to play right."