Road Safety for your child

So summer will be coming to a close soon and the children will be returning to school. With the darker mornings and evenings the subject of road safety should be in all our minds. My children are grown-up but keeping our children safe applies to today as much as when mine were young.

So here is a few of my ideas which I think would protect and keep safe any little one.

Wear something colourful

It's easy to buy the winter coat in black or navy, but once the darker nights set in its not so easy to pick out those colours. There are lots of reflective product's that you can buy for your child to wear. It could be things that are stuck on clothing or ones that slip on and off. Being reflective means that car head lights will pick it up and know you are there. This means that your child is less likely to be involved in
a road traffic accident.

Bling out your school bag

If your child had a school bag or backpack why not buy some fun stuff to stick on and decorate. You can even buy reflective fabric that you could cut out your own shapes. How fun to spend an afternoon with them personalising their bag. If they have a part in it they will be more keen to use it. That always worked with mine, I let them do all sorts and they loved it, but I knew they would be seen.
This goes also for bicycles as well, once again all types of reflective tape and stickers can be used, for maximum effect.

Pavement Safety

When my children were young I always made them hold my hand if we were near a road. I never let them run off and also made sure I walked nearest the road and not them. We always made a game of being aware of the road. When we had to cross I made them look and tell me if it was safe. They thought they were in being all grown-up but I was in full control.
If your child is aware of road safety, it is not good thing for them but it will help with road traffic accidents as well. All to often we hear of accidents that happen due to a child running into the road. All the above can improve pavement safety.

Explain, Explain. Explain

Go over road safety all the time but make it lots of fun. I liked to make everything a game, but at the same time making sure the safety aspects were reinforced. Making sure they understood how important it was to stay safe on the road was even more important as they got older. Making lots of chances to practise is a great idea too.
So I hope this post has made you think about road safety and also remember to have fun with those creative ideas.