What do you do when your child is scalded?  We will assume it is a small patch on the hand and not a serious scalding involving the whole body, and we will assume the liquid is a bowl of hot chinese dessert.

1. Wipe away the dessert with a towel?
2. Soak hand in ice water or a bucket of ice cube?
3. Put hand under the tap for a few minutes?
4. Apply dubious ointment?
5. Break the blisters?
6. Apply butter?

You will probably want to bring your child to the doctor as soon as possible, but in the mean time, you can perform some simple first aid.  E.g.

1. Instead of using a wet towel to clean the hand, just put the affected hand under running tap for at least 5-10 minutes to cool down the hand.  It will clean the hand at the same time.  Using the towel is bad because the rubbing will break any blisters that may form, it will be painful, and the fluff of the towel will stick to the wound.

2. Do NOT put the hand in ice or ice water.

3. Do not apply ointment, butter, honey,etc.  This will interfere with what the doctor is going to do later on when the child is brought to the doctor.  Oily, sticky ointment and things like butter and honey stick to the wound and are hard to clean off.  They don't even help and may cause infection.  The doctors and nurses will spend unnecessary time, inflicting unnecessary pain, just to get the stuff off before they can do what they are supposed to do.

4. If there are blisters, do not break the blisters.  Exposed wound is more prone to infection.

5. While the skin is healing, the key thing is to prevent infection.  The wound may need to be cleaned and the dressing changed frequently.  Follow the doctor's instruction on this.

6. There are burn dressings available from pharmacies.  Some are medicated so that all you need to do is simply clean the wound and apply the dressing.