Mommy Moments
Lessons in Walking
By Melanie Lewis
Do you know if your kids can walk safely through a parking lot or cross the street by themselves? My town’s school district joined an innovative program which trains kids in street smarts, a.k.a. pedestrian safety. The program called Smart Routes asked for town volunteers to help lead groups of 2-3 kids around the school to demonstrate safe walking. The goal is to get more kids walking and active. I had the opportunity to see how much second graders know about crossing the street by volunteering to lead these novice pedestrians.
It was like having a hidden camera. For kids who have been upright walking for a while, I was a little dismayed by their lack of awareness. However, they are at a distinct disadvantage, height-wise, to perform well without the benefit of additional training. They drilled, practiced and evaluated many pedestrian situations, which taught and reinforced safe walking.
In a parking lot the kids learned to keep a ‘kid’ distance from cars. Make notes of lights, sounds or lack of them with hybrid cars, and presence of a driver. In one exercise one child stood in front of a mini-van the other stood in back. We asked if they could see each other. They couldn’t unless they jumped up and down. “If you can’t see the driver, they probably can’t see you.”
‘Sneak a peak’ was a catchy phrase to reinforce that you look out between the cars before opening car door or coming out between parked cars.
Beyond the parking lot we covered crossing the street. Cross at a crosswalk or corner. That was really tough for the kids, especially when your friend is directly across the street. But being safe means walking to the corner or cross walk. 2 other important safety features were brought out that some adults didn’t think about. The first was what to do in the event you dropped something crossing the street. Safety says to leave it and continue crossing the street. Once safely at the side, check again for traffic, bend down with your hand held high to give you some additional visibility, then proceed back. Drivers would not be expecting a pedestrian to stop and once bent down a pedestrian become less visible. Secondly, double check friendly traffic advice from drivers. A driver may stop for a pedestrian crossing the street and give you the friendly wave to proceed. The driver is not always aware that there are other factors for you to consider. So always check for other cars that want to pass that driver, or they are coming from another direction. The other catchy saying we taught the kids was, “look around the world”. Look both ways, is the old way. The kids really need to look at all driveways, motorcycles, bikes, etc. or all around, not just side to side.
The last area we covered was walking on a sidewalk. So many kids want to walk at the edge like a balance beam. We instructed them to hold their arm out and stand away from the edge at least that far. Walking as far away from the edge was the best as long as it didn’t interfere with others on the sidewalk. The adult should always be on the outside since they are taller and have more visibility. And whenever possible walk on the side of the road facing traffic. Again, the importance of being able to make eye-contact with the driver. We put the walk back in sidewalk with an interesting lesson. We had the kids run as fast as they could and then when we said stop they had to stop. We measured the distance it took for them to stop. Then we did the same thing, but walking as fast as they could. This time they stopped after one foot. This was an excellent illustration for the kids to see they needed to be able to control themselves around traffic, driveways and parking lots.
The goal of the safe routes program is to teach kids to be safe walking.
The over arching idea is to gets kids walking to school, to friend’s house instead of being sedentary. Take some time to do some of the drills and it will help your kids and increase you confidence in their ability to be safe.
Good walking or promenade à pied –as the French say.
Please check out this helpful toolkit of safe routes topics and tips.
http://www.walkboston.org/sites/default/files/Pedestrian%20Safety%20Education%20Toolkit.pdf
Happy Walking!
Melanie
Melanie Lewis is the mother of 2 active young boys. She is married and works part-time as a Silpada representative and a weight loss consultant. She enjoys book club, and playing with her Blue-mitted Ragdoll, Percy and Golden Retriever, Rosie. She can be reached atmelaniewlewis@yahoo.com.