How do I teach 'road sense' to an 18 month old?

[Peggotty]

Hello, does anyone have any advice on whether it is possible to do this at this age?! My DD has just started wanting to walk longer distances out of the pram. She has grasped the concept of staying on the inside of the pavement, stoppping at roads and will take my hand to cross, but as soon as toe touches tarmac on the actual road, a screaming fit occurs. (she's just entered an extremely independent phase in last week or so, becoming proper toddler) Is she too young (or bloody minded!) to learn to keep holding my hand as we cross roads. The roads we've been crossing are extremely quiet suburban roads, but I'm still a gibbering wreck by the time I've manhandled DD, buggy and various toys she's insisted on carrying (then strewn on ground) across the road. Should I just carry her over roads until she's a bit older? Thanks in advance for ANY advice. This is my first thread, I'm ridiculously excited about posting and slightly - don't know why!!!!

I personally would think that it's not possible at this age and I would just carry her over roads.
welcome

she is way too young to understand about road sense

you can't teach road sense as such, but the screaming when being told to hold your hand thing wears off, honest! can you practise near your house, without the buggy and other accessories?

Way too young to have road sense proper.

You have to insist that she holds your hand over the roads or she goes in the pushchair. No choice. She will get the message.

Welcome Peg! Ds is 21 months and so far road sense here consists of YOU DON'T GO IN THE ROAD WITHOUT MUMMY. If he won't hold my hand I carry him or put him back in the buggy to show him that him going in the road without holding my hand is not an option. I think the stakes are too high on this one to be anything other than crystal clear. I live in London, btw, so we have to deal with a lot of busy roads!!

sorry, everyone else is right, you should just keep insisting that she hold youer hand or go in the buggy, she will get the message and quit screaming and throwing a fit

Hello Peggotty and welcome

Basically - Trinity is right!! When your dd is a little older you may want to sign up with the Children's Traffic Club; they send out a series of booklets with stickers specifically aimed at young children. my dd loved them and I think learned quite a lot.

She sounds like she's doing well. I think the main thing is to make sure you cross the road with text book road safety yourself, every time. They learn most from watching and copying.

I do let DS (21 mo) walk across roads when I am certain that I have a good firm hold on him - when I do I also get down to his level and do the whole looking and listening thing in an exaggerated way first.

The minute the independant streak kicked in, I just kept repeating what you should do when you cross the road. Like you, there was a bit of a struggle but eventually it seemed to kick in. I played a little game with the hand holding thing.

I would say look at mummys face when you hold my hand ( I would grin insanely ear to ear)when he held my hand, but look at mummy when you dont (put the ugliest sad face on)when his hand wasnt in mine. ds thought this was highly amusing an no doubt any onlookers did too

In my experience he has never been too young to learn.

Quick replies, thanks!!! Yeah, thought she was probably too young. I am quite prepared to just stick her in the buggy, or carry her if she won't take my hand, won't be faffing about at roadsides trying to persuade an 18 month old it's really best if she takes my hand! It's bizarre, her transition from older baby to toddler has happened sooo quickly, literally in the last 2 weeks - is it always like that!? (see my big 'first time mother' neon sign flashing away)

Oh even more replies whilst I was painstakingly typing out that last one - it moves fast round here doesn't it!!? Thank you everyone - nice welcome, I thought I wouldn't get any replies (newbie paranoia)

my 21 mth old dd sometimes can be happily walking next to me on the pavement and as soon we cross over the road, she either stop and bend down to pick summat up in the middle of the road!!, or she stop and asked me to carry her!! "eh??, now??"

oh and welcome too xxx

Oh Lord I know that dropping favourite toy in the middle of the road/suddenly deciding to turn round and go back/stop and look at a feather thing all too well. And ds is three! In your shoes, I'd just carry her/keep her in the buggy or hold hands very tight.

I'm very firm about holding his hand in a vice-like grip and keeping him moving. And I demonstrate what he should do myself, really exaggerated waiting for the green man/cars to stop. Takes ages, sometimes, in heavy traffic, but has to be done.

When she's older, worth bearing in mind that apparently children can't judge the speed of moving vehicles until they are about eight.

I think a bit young yet TBH

I think even at this age "general inane chat" about road safety is usual, whether or not the child is on foot or on the buggy.

"Now we're approaching the road, we stop safely at the edge of the pavement, but not right on the kerb; and we look left and right and listen for traffic, now that it's clear it's safe to cross, and we cross the road looking and listening as we cross" sort of thing.

Until the co-operates in crossing sensibly holding your hands she should be strapped safely in a buggy IMO.

If you insist on clear rules early on, they soon learn to conform. My boys are now 7 and 9 , have excellent road sense and frequently cross roads on their own - quiet ones, or ones with pedestrian crossings. But when they are out with me they still instinctively hold my hand to cross every road

We do the 'if you're not holding hands,you're going in the buggy' and it seems to work so far. I also say 'look left, look right etc'. Although dd (18 months) is too young to really understand hopefully she'll just get use to it and understand it one day !

Both our ds's have been independent little .... and early walkers, and we've instilled the phrase "no cars, no cars" whilst looking each way, from the very beginning. Of course holding hands firmly - with a fair few tantrums about that for a while with each. Now ds1 is 4 and very sensible and ds2 is 2.4 and not too bad - still needs to hold hands, but when he comes to get in the car and his door is on the road side, he'll say "no cars, no cars" and look each way - I'll stand by the open door and he'll walk to the door.

Just keep repeating whatever short phrase works, and as she gets older she'll get the hang of it.

Thank you again for the replies - good idea about general chatting about road safety as we go along. It's funny, but she seems to be able to recognise stationary cars as being cars but not recognise moving ones! i.e will point to 'bars' as she calls them sitting parked on roads but acts as those thundering juggernauts passing within a cat's whiskers distance away don't even exist! We've only been out walking near roads a couple of times, just finding it a bit nerve-wracking. Would anyone recommend using the harness rein thingys - just for walking near roads etc. I have some somewhere - I don't like the idea of having them on her just at park etc - have only used them once in fact - but maybe worthwhile for pavement walking?

DD was quite wilfull with regard to hand holding and I resorted to reins, once she worked out that it was my hand or the reins she soon opted to hold my hand!!

I used reins with DS until he was about 2.

There is no way prior to that I could manage him & the buggy (which we would inevitably be taking with us) withut him legging it into the road. They simply don;t have a clue at that age.

I would say that within the last 2-3 months (he's 2.4 now) he is becoming more aware and calls roads "car roads" i.e. bits of ground which cars go on! he knows we have to stop and look for cars coming before we walk on them.

But I still grip his hand firmly when we are walking along a busyish road. On a side road with just teh odd car he walks on his own.

Definitely use reins (if only for your peace of mind at the mo). You can also get a rucksack style which have a lead on them (not as canine as it sounds!)which dd 19 mo loves wearing with her fave rabbit in!

Agree that reins look awful but after what happened to Jamie Bulger I swore I would use them if I ever had kids. Well now I have a dd who is starting to prefer walking to the pushchair so I bought some reins and I feel so much happier and dd doesn't mind them either.

Well, tried the reins earlier today to walk round to local shops, she ended up swinging about on the end of them screaming or batting at my hand to make me drop them!! Ended up turning round at the bottom of the road and marching home in a strop - that is, I did, not DD!! She was tired though & I was only going out with her because I didn't want to have to read frigging 'where's that monkey' to her for the billionth time. Will persevere - I WILL win this battle