When Should You Actually Start Teaching Your Offspring The Rules Of The Road? Before They Start School? Before They Start Kindergarten? Or Much Earlier?
The only right time is actually always. As soon as the little ones can walk and you can walk with them outside by your hand, you should make sure that the simplest rules are followed.
For This We Recommend The Following Procedure:
- Always walk on the sidewalk on the side facing the street.
- Stop at any street before crossing it, whether a car is coming or not.
- Ask aloud to the world if a car is coming. If you can answer the question in the negative with a clear conscience: Cross the street quickly.
- Keep your child by the hand at all times.
- To make the whole thing playful, you can let out a loud cheer after successfully reaching the other side of the road.
The rehearsal should happen playfully and “incidentally”, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. After some time, you can test the success on a quiet Sunday morning by letting your child run freely along the sidewalk towards the street and – traffic permitting – simply wait and see what happens. Once your child has internalized the behavior, he or she will run toward the street at breakneck speed and stop abruptly at the edge of the sidewalk to wait for you. At some point, however, you will find that your oh-so-well-behaved child has a mind of his own. He or she will then disregard every, but really every rule and eventually run into the street without looking. Be prepared for this, because the “defiance phase” does not come overnight, it announces itself slowly and insidiously.
Of course, you can not tolerate such behavior, tell your child forcefully what he did wrong. You will probably have to repeat this more often.
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