Road Safety

✨ Lots of boundary setting.

✨ Lots of sticking to my word when he broke the boundary.

✨ Lot of related consequences.

✨ Lots of practice.

✨ Lots of trust.

(I list his age for reference, not for comparison. Safety comes first)

💛 16-18  Months Old - The Ground Work 💛 

He was allowed to walk beside me on the sidewalk and hold hands while we crossed the street (we live in the suburbs, so we could practice this on very quiet streets):

✨ Set the Boundary: “We’re going for a walk now. You can walk on the sidewalk by yourself, or hold hands on the sidewalk.”

 Crossing the Street:

✨ Before: “We’re coming up to the street. That means it’s time to hold hands!”

✨ During: “We’re holding hands while we cross the street! We hold hands to keep each other safe.”

✨ After: “Yay!!”

➡️ If he ran onto the road: I would quickly but calmly run to get him and bring him back to the side fo the road where we started. I would continue to hold his hand, and gently squeeze it (a reminder to hold hands even though we were already were) and say, “we’re going to cross the road now, that means it’s time to hold hands!”.

➡️ If he did it again, or tried to run down a driveway onto the road: “I can’t let you run onto the road. We’re going to hold hands now to practice walking together”. 

And we would hold hands until we crossed another street and he could try again.

💛 2 Years Old 💛

Around this time, he stopped getting “chances”. If he tried to cross the road without holding my hand/tried to run down a driveway onto the road, I would skip to, “I can’t let you run onto the road. We’re going to hold hands now to practice walking together”. 

💛 2.5 Years Old+ 💛

I'm always careful and cautious, but I'm very confident he won't cross the street without hoiding my hand. So I started letting him walk a bit behind me or on the grass at this age (again, you know your child best). I set firm boundaries so he knows what he’s allowed to do. This can look like, “you can walk on the grass, but only in the middle so you’re not too close to the road. When we see a car coming, I need you to come quick and hold my hand”. 

If he doesn’t come to me:

“When a car comes, I need you to come quick to hold my hand. We’re going to hold hands to practice and stay safe”.

After a couple months we naturally got to a point where he doesn't come back to me, but he will slow to a walk or occasionally stop. If he were to do anything that were even verging on unsafe, I would go back a step!