Teaching Road Safety To Preschoolers could be a very difficult task, but it is worth it. Teaching children about road safety from a young age is critical but what exactly is involved in road safety?
The methods and precautions you use to teach your children and students to behave safely around roads and avoid being killed or injured are referred to as road safety for children. Pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, vehicle passengers, horseback riders, and on-road public transportation riders are examples of typical road users.
Teaching Road Safety To Preschoolers
What is the significance of children’s road safety?
Rehearsing street security is critical to guarantee the wellbeing of the administrators of a vehicle, travelers, and walkers. In fact, it gets more and more important every year as traffic gets worse, children get more freedom to go to and from school without their parents or guardians, and students start spending more time with friends outside of the home. Crashing on the road is a leading cause of childhood death and injury, and the risk increases as children gain independence and enter secondary school.
A child’s life is full of distractions such as having fun with friends both inside and outside of school, talking on their phones, listening to music on the way home, or simply letting their minds wander while they are out. Because we are all susceptible to distractions, it is essential for children to learn about and practice road safety in school.
What to Educate
Cover the road safety ABC, adjusted for the age you are working with.
Children under the age of eight can be taught A and B beginning at the age of two. Through practical training, they can be taught rules and encouraged to follow them. However, children under the age of eight should not use roads without the supervision of an adult, and adults should always adhere to the Crossing Code when walking with their children. Grown-ups should consistently, hold youngsters’ hands or use reins with more youthful kids on the grounds that under 8’s:
- Have difficulty estimating distance and speed;
- Act impulsively and easily distracted;
- Experience issues figuring out risk and are situated around play;
- Are little (so can’t see dangers) and are yet creating visual perception and hearing;
- Are lighthearted, not thoughtless;
- Should not be permitted to independently walk near roads for these reasons.
Over 8-year-olds will be better able to comprehend C and make their own decisions based on different options and risk assessments. Nonetheless, they need to have A and B re-underlined to them on the grounds that over 8’s:
- May stroll all alone yet commit errors that can cost their lives in light of absence of involvement;
- Are susceptible to being coerced by other kids into taking risky actions like crossing a road.
The road safety ABC teaching topics are listed in the following sections
A indicates awareness: Traffic is harmful and dangerous. You can teach children, more openly as they get older, that:
- Worldwide, traffic accidents result in the deaths of one person every 30 seconds and cause the harm to millions of people every year.
- Traffic accidents frequently result in fatalities or serious injuries. Loss of limbs and paralysis are among the injuries. Note: Many children may believe that minor injuries, like breaking an arm, are acceptable; you may need to emphasize how terrible serious injuries are.
- While walking or biking, some people engage in risky behaviors like texting while crossing a street or not wearing a cycle helmet. These individuals are bound to be killed or harmed.
- Some drivers do dangerous things that make it more likely that they will kill or hurt themselves or someone else. For instance, they might speed, use a phone while driving, or drive after drinking alcohol. We have laws like speed limits to prevent accidents from killing or injuring people, but some drivers break them.
B is for conduct: It is crucial to teach children the language of road safety before they can tell the rules. For instance, knowing the names of automobiles, street furniture like pavements and kerbs, and the words “fast,” “slow,” “looking,” “listening,” and “crossing”. Because of their parents, a well-educated child as young as five may already be familiar with fundamental road safety rules. In any case, others may not. Hence, you ought to start with more youthful kids by checking they all understand the following:
- Pavements and paths are for people; streets are for traffic.
- Never go out close to streets without an adult. Hold on to their hand without letting go.
- If told to stop, stop right away. Unless instructed, never attempt to cross a road.
- Instead of playing in a road or running into it, play in a park, field, or garden.
- You can assist adults in looking and listening for traffic so they can cross safely.
- Automated traffic lights and other crossings make it easier for people to cross the road. If you see a red man, you need to stop.
- You can wear brilliant garments to be seen by traffic.
- If you are riding in a car, never undo your seatbelt, play with the door handles, try to get out, or otherwise cause a distraction for the driver.
In addition to the aforementioned, children are ready to learn by the age of five:
- The Crossing Code (find a safe place to cross, stop, look, and listen, and cross carefully, always looking and listening)
- The safest places to cross: underpasses; footbridges; where a person is crossing the street; traffic signal (robot) intersections; zebra intersections.
C denotes choice: The most effective method to settle on the most secure decisions and help other people stay safe as well
Under-8’s are unprepared to settle on their own decisions. However, it is essential for older children to understand that they are capable of making safe decisions, that they may be subjected to pressure to make risky decisions, and that they should learn how to resist these pressures and advocate for others’ safety.
As long as they are not encouraged to make those choices on their own, younger children can also be encouraged to consider options. It is possible to encourage all children to speak out against dangerous behavior such as pushing one another into the road, running across roads without looking, driving too fast, not fastening their seatbelts, or not wearing helmets on motorcycles.
READ: Fire Safety For Preschooler
Showing road safety to kids and youngsters of 11-20
11-20years old may at first think that road safety is for more youthful youngsters, or exhausting. However, the majority of young people have a lot to say about road safety, and as long as it is taught well, they will not find it boring. In fact, effective road safety instruction for these age groups enables you to investigate difficult but worthwhile topics like:
- Death and bereavement;
- Life-altering injuries (like paralysis and brain injury) and how they affect people and their families;
- Taking responsibility for others in the context of good citizenship—especially if driving;
- Society’s obsession with motor vehicles, the negative effects it has on communities (safety, health, pollution, social interaction, costs), and the alternatives to driving;
- Differences in risk-taking levels between men and women;
- Alcohol and drugs—including alcohol and drug use among young people, and For instance, they might:
Young people are likely to have witnessed reckless behavior on roads and are well-versed in road safety issues due to their daily road use.
Additionally, they may have witnessed or heard of someone in their community being injured or killed in a road accident, so they are aware that fatalities and serious injuries do occur on roads.
Teaching road safety to this age group should:
- Build on students’ prior knowledge rather than preaching to them
- Require students to think for themselves and conduct original research
- Be conversational, creative, and relevant to students’ actual lives
- Involve students in real-world projects rather than just classroom learning
- Explore the dangers of risk-taking
READ: 14 Solutions Of Road Accident
Games and activities about road safety
One of the best ways to teach your kids important lessons is through play. You can rely on the following road safety activities to help your child learn about road safety.
- Give your child a scenario to discuss and ask them what they should do.
- To help them remember more, draw or paint road and traffic signs or posters.
- Try to make a fun song about road safety using the signs and what they mean.
- For older children, crosswords are an excellent learning tool. Crosswords for kids’ road safety education can be found online.
- Play a game of guessing in which you play sounds that they might hear on the street and ask them what they are.
- Learn about road safety with your kids by using activity sheets. On the internet, you can get worksheets on road safety education for different age groups to download. Free online resources can be used to teach your child about road safety from automobile manufacturers like BMW. For interactive lessons on road safety, you can also download the Renault “Safety For All” app.
- Make a road and intersection map and use toy cars and people to reenact safety scenarios for younger children. You can likewise draw out street signs on the guide.
In conclusion, though teaching Road Safety To Preschoolers could be a very difficult task, but it is worth it. Teach them everything they need to know about road safety as you will not be always with them; this can help them avoid some risk on the road by themselves.
Its your responsibility to make them to be aware, do you part.
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