Monday 16 February 2015

Keeping children safe on the roads - Road Safety Quiz.

At the end of next month Bug will be the grand old age of four.

It seems as if the last four years have flown by, gone in the blink of an eye with him growing up so fast as my little baby has turned into a big boy.

Over the years we have taught him a lot of things and watched him learn so much. We have seen him learn to walk and talk, watch him master new skills such as learning to scoot and climb independently and seen and helped him develop his speech and learn things like his numbers and colours s as well as begin to master his skill of drawing and writing.

We have also been passionate about supporting his learning of skills that will help him be independent, skills that he will need to know about to live in the world especially as we won’t always be there right next to him. We have always been keen for him to develop his social skills and learn about behaving well; being nice to others and being happy to share especially share his toys with his friends.

 Another thing we have been passionate about him learning is road safety.

We believe him knowing the importance of road safety is vital and we are keen to infuse the idea and significance of road safety into his mind so that he learns from a young age how important it is for him to be safe and vigilant whilst walking, scooting or riding his bike on the road.

I remember my mum teaching me as a child the importance of road safety and the Hedgehog Road Safety campaigns of my childhood aimed at helping children understand the dangers of crossing the road safely, with the slogan “Stop. Look. Listen. Live” having resonated and stayed with me over the years.

Now that I am a parent it now my turn to teach my child about staying safe on the road and teach him that it can be very dangerous.

Since Bug started walking, toddling along with us on the road on walks in the country or when walking in town we have always been vigilant on keeping him safe and begin to teach him about road safety, with the slogan from my childhood “Stop. Look. Listen. Live” along with only walking when the ‘green’ man says it safe to coming into play.

When we moved into town from the country where we walk daily on roads in a busy town especially once Bug started school where we would have the school run to do every day, road safety became even more important than ever.

Thankfully Bug has always grasped the importance of being safe on the road, even highlighting to me dangers and realising that when we are walking on the road it is not the time to run or mess about…..he knows those times are reserved for when we are at the park, in fields or when walking in the woods.

Bug knows he cannot run freely on the road, he is always at my side – independently making a point of being on the inside of the pavement, switching sides if we cross the road so that mummy is the one walking on the outside next to the cars and always holds my hand when we cross the road after safely looking and listening to make sure it is safe and when the green man tells us we can cross.

As road safety is so important and such a vital lesson for Bug to learn, I am always keen for the importance message of road safety to be reinforced. Thankfully the importance of road safety is resonated to him at school, where they are passionate about teaching road safety and instilling key life skills such as road safety to the children by talking them out on monitored and safe little walks out into the ‘real world’ so they learn on the go.

Do you have any tips or advice on teaching road safety to children?

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