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Biking, walking, carpooling, busing: your student is making the commute to school one way or another, and that small journey should be the safest it can be for your child. Consider these tips to keep your child safe on their route to school:
1. Put the phone down! Checking up on social media, listening to music, even quickly shooting off a text distracts you from your surroundings. Teach your kids to put the electronics away and stay vigilant.
2. Collaborate with your child’s school and other schools in the area to implement safe school zones. Safe Kids Worldwide is the brainchild behind Model School Zones. The organization is undertaking a pilot project to create safe zones around schools. The organization is installing safety signage, lights, and high-visibility crosswalks, among other safety tools, at Model School Zone locations. Has your school implemented these safety measures or could they be doing more?
3. Work out a safe route to school with your child. Elk Grove Police Department suggests this: “Choose the quickest way with the fewest street crossings and use intersections with crossing guards. Stay away from parks, vacant lots, fields, and other places where there aren't many people around.”
4. Wait until your child's ride arrives. If your young kids are busing or carpooling, walk with your children to the bus stop or pickup zone and wait with them. Make sure drivers can see the kids.
5. Does your child know your phone number? With cellphones cataloging all of our contacts, there is no longer a need to memorize a bunch of phone numbers. However, you must make sure your child knows what numbers to call should they have an emergency. Don't just have them written down, your child should memorize them!
6. Train your kids in the event of a robbery. It's a worst-case scenario, but the more you and your child know, the better prepared they will be in the case of a robbery. Taking mental notes of the robber’s appearance and retreating to a safe location to report the crime are key tips that children can often forget in the moment.
7. Buddy up. Your child should have someone to walk or ride with to and from school. Consider creating a “walking school bus” with neighborhood students and parents. The goal of walking school buses is to encourage more students to walk to and from school as a group with adult supervision. It's a carpool without the car!
8. Be aware of "stranger danger." Remind your child to never accept rides or gifts from someone they and you don’t know well.
9. Look left, look right, look left again. We’ve all been told as kids to look both ways before crossing the street, but this is an important tip that should be repeated many times over.
10. Three steps: each kids to stand at least three giant steps from the curb when waiting for their pick up.
11. Protect their heads. For bikers, skateboarders, and unicycle riders: always wear a helmet!
Check out this Sesame Street video if you want to make this more relatable for your young child:
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