As your child gets older, they will no doubt want to walk to school or to a friend’s house on their own. While there are many dangers that your child can come into, including stranger danger, teaching your little one how to use the road safely, whether they are crossing it or on their bikes, is one of the most important things you can teach them.
Here are five fun ways to teach your child how to use the road safely:
Red light, green light, orange light
Make sure your child is well aware of how the traffic lights work by playing this fun game. All you need to do is paint three large circles one red, one green and another one orange. Get your son or daughter to run around the garden stopping when you hold up the red circle, going when you hold the green and slowing down when you hold up the orange one.
Fun rhymes
There is nothing quite like a fun rhyme to get road safety to stick in their head. You can teach them the ‘Stop, Look and Listen’ rhyme or make your own one up with your youngster. Write it on a large sheet of paper and get your little one to decorate it with paints and colours. Pop it up on their bedroom wall so that it will be the first thing they see in the morning and the last thing at night.
Garden roadway
This works great if there are lots of people. Use traffic cones or rope to create a road in your back garden. If your garden isn’t big enough take the fun to the park. Simply map out a road, designate one person as a car, another as a cyclist and one as the pedestrian. Use your red, green and yellow circles as traffic lights and get everyone to play their part in road safety.
Driveway surprise
When your little one is walking or cycling along the path there is always the danger that a car will reverse out from a driveway. To ensure your child’s safety, teach them to be careful when going past a gate. Practice this in your own street and make it a fun game. Have one adult hide in one driveway – obviously with the homeowners permission – and get another adult to walk with your child as they try to get past the driveway before you get a chance to jump out at them.
Dress up
Let your little one go wild in their room picking out clothes they feel are bright enough that cars will be able to see them in the dark. Ask them if they feel they are visible enough and go outside to test it out. It might take a few tries to get it spot on but you will all have fun dressing up.
