Teaching road safety can be tricky, especially with new technologies and laws. Nonetheless, it’s important to start young and to continue road safety education as you children grow into young adults and teens. Below are some tips and tricks for teaching road safety.
According to Brake.org, you should start with the ABCs. That is, you should teach young children Awareness, Behavior, and Choice:
- Awareness – teach kids that traffic is dangerous and can hurt people.
- Behavior – demonstrate strategies for staying safe, like holding hands and using a crosswalk.
- Choice – impart to children the fact that they are ultimately responsible for making the right decisions.
The ABCs are great for young children to teens.
One important safety behavior to teach is looking left, then right, and left again. Most traffic will strike first from the left, so teaching children this crossing strategy can drastically reduce the number of accidents on the road. Also, teach kids where and when it’s safe to cross. Always follow crosswalks or cross at street corners. Never play near the road, and be sure to observe traffic and crossing signals.
For teens and older children, talk about electronic devices and drinking and driving. You should never have headphones in when crossing the street, and you should always put away electronic devices. Look at statistics for road casualties and have discussions about the social impact of drinking and driving. Teens are equipped to have intelligent conversations and debates about road safety, which is the best way to get them interested.
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