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With hunting season in full swing, parents have been taking aim to ask me if there are any safety guidelines that I might suggest for older children who want to join their parents in this activity.

Thanks to hunter safety programs, the number of injuries that occur from hunting are far less than those that occur from essentially all other sports.

Football, for example, causes 500 times more injuries than hunting. Even ping pong has twice the number of reported injuries than hunting.

We do not want even one hunting injury to occur, so here are some safety tips:

1. Children under 15 who want to shoot during a hunting season need to take a hunter safety course.

This needs to be done before they can apply for a state hunting license, which is also required.

Children should always be accompanied by an adult who is also certified in hunter safety, and children under 12 should really not be allowed to handle a firearm.

Always remember — never leave a child alone in the woods when you are hunting.

2. Wear fluorescent orange and have your child wear orange.

While this is not required, it is strongly recommended.

This may reduce the chance of an accident occurring or your child being mistaken for an animal by other hunters.

3. Older children who do shoot under adult supervision need to observe three key rules.

— Always point the firearm in a safe direction and never at anything you are unwilling to destroy.

— Always keep the finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.

— Always keep the firearm unloaded with the ammunition secured and stored separately when not in use or until you are in the hunting area and ready to shoot. An additional, and just as important point is to not only be sure of your target, but also what might be beyond or behind that target.

4. What to do if your children are not going hunting but encounter a gun in someone else’s home when they are unsupervised?

Statistics estimate that guns are in more than one-third of all US households with children.

If they do come upon a gun and are unsupervised, teach your children to: Stop what they are doing.

Do not touch the gun.

Leave the area.

Tell an adult.

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What if you are keeping a gun in your home?

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Please keep all firearms stored away in a locked safety box or cabinet with trigger locks on those guns when not in use for hunting.

Make sure the ammunition is also locked and stored separately.

Firearms are now the leading cause of death in children and teens and 85% of firearm deaths in children under 12 and younger occur in the home, so let’s not contribute to the death toll due to a loaded unlocked firearm being in the home.

Hopefully, tips like these will be the safety checklist you need to ensure a safe hunting season for you and your child.

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Lewis First, MD, is Chief of Pediatrics at The University of Vermont Children’s Hospital 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 NBC5.