Crossing the road with your child.

Teaching your child about road safety is an important learning stage in their lives, especially when they start walking to school. Showing your children about road safety can help your child to be safer when crossing the road and we have some ideas for simple activities that you can do with your child in order for them to be safe and also learn in a fun way.

Learning together this way is fun and it supports the key safety messages that your child is learning in his or her Early Years setting.
Setting a good example for young children through your own behaviour on the road helps them learn good road safety skills and apply these throughout their lives.

Stop, Look and Listen!

This is all about crossing the road safely. The activities below will help your child to learn:

• what stop, look and listen means.
• that they should always hold a carer’s hand when crossing the road.
• about pedestrian and zebra crossings.

Activities

Walk to a local pedestrian, pelican or zebra crossing and let your child show you how they can cross the road safely with you:

• Remind them that they should always stop, look and listen before they cross.
• Hold hands at all times near traffic.
• Make sure your child looks and listens while crossing.

Visit the Children’s Traffic Club website at www.childrenstrafficclub.com and play some of the online games therewith your child (they are designed for ages 3-4).

• Have a look at the Parent’s section for more great advice on keeping your child safer.

When crossing the road with your child, talk about what stop, look and listen means and why we have to do each one.

• Make sure that your child knows why stop, look and listen is important.
• Talk about safer places to cross, away from parked cars if possible.
• Use subways, footbridges and traffic islands as well as the different kinds of pedestrian crossings like pelicans and zebras.