Road safety. Please help (gently if poss)

[acnebride]

DS is nearly 2 and yesterday he ran into a busy road.

That gap is for how I feel about it, which could be a long long post with a lot of tears.

Now I could do with knowing how other people deal with this. Of course we train him to stop, look listen, to wait for the green man and all that, and of course we don't expect him to do any of this yet. but what else? Do you -

1. keep your children clamped to your side at all times on pavements
2. use reins
3. insist on pushchairs
4. let them run to some extent but smack them if they do run in the road
5. same as 4 but some other 'punishment'?

I just don't know what to do and I feel like a rotten crappy mum who can't even keep her child basically safe. Please help.

1. cling grimly to DS hand when anywhere near road.

combined with 4.

toddlers have an amazing lack of road sense. don't flog yourself over this. am sure we've all had similar near misses.

no matter how good a mum you are at some time they are going to have a near miss with something. Please don't beat yourself up about it and concentrate on how lucky you were not on what might have happened, or you'll go crazy!
At that age probably best to insist they hold your hand near busy roads, I used wrist reins (which I know a lot of people on here don't like, but I found them invaluable).
Just remember you ARE a good mum

ds1 (6) has no road sense- severely autistic- and I use a belt to hold onto him if I have the other 2, or I hold his wrist if I have him alone and we are only going a short distance.

DS2 (3) I tend to repeatedly remind him to stay on the pavement.

The main thing is that he is OK! Focus on that & don't beat yourself up with "What if's" you'll make yourself ill.

If she isn't in the pushchair, we mainly use reins for DD (2.4) as we are surronded by busy roads. If we don't then I hold her hand.

i clamp dd2 hand to the buggy (she put her hands on the buggy i put mine on top of hers) or have hold of her coat.

DS (20mo) rarely walks down the pavement atm because I'm hugely pregnant and he's not been walking all that long, so always goes in the pushchair by roads - walking's for recreational spaces

But I have reins for him and he's worn them in the past and will wear them again. I don't think hand-holding's safe enough and the roads where we live are hugely busy. Plus if they fall over, you can break their fall to a certain extent.

dd is 22 mtnhs and I have used reins since she was about 15 mnths so she is now used to them and loves them (thankfully) cos she knows if shes wearing them she can walk rather than going in her buggy.

On busy roads, at age 2, I used to have dd on the reins, with the handle bit looped over the pram handle (on the side furthest from the road) so she felt like she had a bit of freedom. She is short so hand-holding at that age gave me backache. We have lots of non-busy roads so we practised walking sensibly and not going near the road etc, and I grabbed her hand if I heard a car.

Now, at 3.6, she holds onto the pram on the side furthest from the road, if the road is busy. Otherwise walks in front of the pram. But she is good at this - and one incident of not stopping or coming to hold the pram straight away when asked means she has to walk holding the pram for ages afterwards.

I look after a friend's little girl a lot, and she is allowed to run ahead and be trusted to stop at the pavement's edge. Freaks me out. I don't let her and she doesn't really understand why not!

DH (who is very laid back) used to let DS1 walk along with no reins or holding hand etc near roads. I kept on saying you cannot trust a toddler. Grip him tightly.
We were out walking when DS1 was nearly 3 (I was heavily pregnant) and I said to DH 'grab his hand'
'oh he's ok' he said. Then without warning DS1 dashed out into road. Luckily the car coming towards him was not going fast and managed to stop. I nearly had my baby then and there!

Know how you feel. Freaks you out I can tell you.

So yes, reins I would say. Toddlers have no concept of safety/danger. And you are not a rotten mum.

I always always hold ds'/dd's hand near a road, whilst saying very loudly and repeatedly 'We always hold hands on the road don't we'. They are both now very good about not going on the road - I trust ds (4) but not dd who is 2 - if you ask her what you do on the road she says 'hold hands' but I don't believe she wouldn't run onto it.

I think reins are a simple and effective solution, I believe they actually allow more freedom than gripping hands and getting stressed

DS (2.3) has been up until now firmly gripped by the wrist or in the buggy. He has just got to the stage where he is allowed to walk next to the wire fence by school to crunch the leaves. I did use reins for a few months up until he was about 22 months. He's been a bit of a shock after DD who just wouldn't run off. You're not at all crappy, they move at lightening speed at this age and he will get better as he's older.

At under 2 years I'd go for any of your options 1, 2 or 3. He's too young for road training to stick. Once he really understands that he must stop at the kerb- and I reckon you're looking at a year or so hence, at least- you can adopt the "failure to stop = hold my hand for the rest of the journey" rule which, ime, works pretty well.

I used a combination of 1 and 2. Stopped the reinds as she got older. Still insist on holding hands on/near roads.

If busy road, buggy or hold dd's hand. If not busy, allow dd to walk on the inside of the pavement with me on the outside blocking with the buggy. But I only have one . At her age, I can't trust her to have her head screwed on at all times. acnebride, we've all had near misses with our slippery eels .

Loads and loads of praise for doing the right thing (holding Mummys hand, standing still etc).

When DS did run in the road once I just ran and grabbed him, carried him to the pavement and VERY firmly told him you do not run in the road, it is very dangerous, Mummy was very worried.

I really don't understand smacking them for something which is essentially the parents fault though.

there are some good things on the hedgehog website for general learning

here

athough might be too advanced for a 2 yr old.

I used reins combined with holding hands from the time dd could walk until she was just 3 - by which time we'd taught her a bit of road sense and she was also pretty good at holding hands. Insisting on pushchairs just delays the inevitable, and I felt that it would mean she would be both clueless about road safety (ie no practice) and more reliant on the pushchair than she should be.

Smacking them once they've run out into the road tends to be more about the parents than the child, I feel - it disipates the parent's fear and shock. It's also too late - for me it was more important to use preventative measures than to punish after the fact, because with dd the punishment would have been what she focussed on, not the message behind it.

I think either reins OR being strapped in pushchair are the ONLY safe option for toddlers...

even the "really good ones" who would never do it still are only moments away from their potentila 1st time, and given the consequences of 1 split second of running off is death its not something i would EVER risk.

As they get older you can gradually let them hold on to the buggy for VERY quiet rpods etc.

Hoever, as my parenst discovered, however muchi had road safety drummed into me at 16 years i still had 1 momentry lapse (morning of 1st GCSE exam) and ran in front of a car travelling at 50mph and nearly killed myself! (was V badly injured instead!)

ds1 holds hands all the time(unless its just him and i and we r in a rush when he goes in buggy)

we use a wrist strap if we are going anywhere really busy like shopping centre for eg. that way if he ran off i could yank him back to me!

worked well for a while as an extra when he first had to walk everywhere.wrist strap and hand holding for extra safety.

pushchair or held hand tightly.

My DD seems to have a vague understanding of the word dangerous. So i have breifly explained that cars are dangerous and could give her an "oww" (pain obv) which she understands.

So when we are walking along a road or car park i say that she either has to hold my hand or get in the buggy if i have the double with me.

If she fights it i just stand still and repeat that its dangerous and that she must do for us to go to the car/shop/etc and she pretty much quickly relents.

Prior to this she has once run out into the road, well a busy car park, and i tried reins but they werent that successful for me personally.

She is 2yrs 8 mths.

acnebride, sounds like you have had a terrible fright.

With both my DSs we used wrist straps until they were able to hold hands reliably (no fighting, squirming trying to break free), DS2 is 3 1/2 and we have just ditched the strap, I still wouldn't trust him near roads and insist that he holds my hand. IMO the only way this can be done is with loads of repetition, you begin to sound like a broken record.