Road Safety: A Guide for Parents
In today’s fast-paced urban environments, with hectic streets and constant traffic, ensuring our children’s safety on the road has never been more important. Road safety isn’t just a basic survival skill, it’s a lifelong lesson that helps them navigate busy streets and avoid potential dangers. Teaching your child about spatial awareness and how to anticipate risks is key to keeping them safe. By instilling road safety habits early on, we can significantly reduce the likelihood of accidents. But what exactly does road safety look like for a child? Here are some practical do’s and don’ts shared by Dr. Swati Vats that will help guide your little one safely through the hustle and bustle of daily life.
What is road safety for children ?
Teaching kids road safety involves key habits like watching traffic signals, using pedestrian crossings, and always being aware of their surroundings. Remind them to look left and right before crossing, and equip them with the knowledge to stay safe in any traffic situation.
Do’s and Don’ts for Road Safety
Do’s:
Teach basic traffic signals: Ensure that your child learns what red, yellow, and green traffic lights and pedestrian signals mean.
Use pedestrian crossings: Always use zebra crossings or pedestrian signals crossing the road.
Hold hands: For children younger in age, ensure hand-holding with an adult when walking near or crossing the road.
Be Alert: Teach your child to look left and then right on either side of the street before crossing the street, even at pedestrian crossings.
Wear Bright Clothes: Ensure that your child is attired in bright or reflective clothes to be visible to drivers, especially at dusk or dawn.
Don’ts:
Don’t Run Across the Road: Teach your child never to run across the street but rather walk to avoid accidents.
Don’t Play Near Roads: Ensure that children should not consider roads as a playground and they should keep away from the roads.
Don’t Cross Between Parked Cars: Enforce your child to cross the road only at designated places and never in between the parked cars where the view of the driver and the child is poor and can get easily concealed.
Don’t Get Distracted: The child should avoid using mobile or headphones while going on the road.
Practical Tips:
Dr. Swati Vats shares some great tips on how to get kids to understand road safety. Parents are forever struggling to make their kids hold their hands while walking on the road. Children detest holding hands because they want to see things by themselves and do things at their own speed. Dr. Vats suggested using the “power of three” to inculcate such vital safety habits
- Set Clear Rules: Before you leave the house run through three simple rules with your child. For example:
“You will hold my hand while walking on the road because it’s dangerous.”
“You will walk, not run, with me.”
“You will stay close to me.”
Remind them of these rules each time that you go out to reinforce their importance.
- Storytelling: Find storybooks that include the road safety rules, especially ones involving holding hands. It will make the rules much more enjoyable and interactive for a child to read through those stories.
- Positioning: While walking on the road, your child should walk on the side away from the traffic. This position safeguards him from any danger. Safety habits, insists Dr. Vats, must be imparted playfully. Consistency is the key—firmly repeat these rules every time, and soon he will learn to implement them at most occasions, like crowded places such as malls.
Conclusion
It is, therefore, a parental obligation to teach children road safety. Clearly lay down rules, make teaching real with storytelling and other exciting methods for making the teaching real, and ensure safe practices in all situations. Remember that constant reinforcement and enjoyment while learning safety make the habits stay for life in your child.
Podar Prep puts the safety and well-being of the children at the top, which means inculcating road safety education through their curriculum. Together, let us make sure that our kids grow and are well-equipped to face safety on roads.
Ready to help your child ace road safety? Join Podar Prep today and let’s build a safe future for our little ones!
