Street Training

July 3rd, 2018
kids
(As with anything else I write about parenting, this is mostly just my observations with my own two kids and may not generalize as well as I think it does.)

One of the first things we needed to teach our kids once they were able to walk was how to stay out of the street. We do a lot of walking, and having them know where it is and isn't safe to walk is really important. This was a bit more work up front compared to always holding their hands while walking, but has easily made up for that effort over time. Being able to relax knowing that they're going to stay safe on their own is really nice.

I started by staying close, and when approaching a street saying something like "we're coming to a street, time to hold hands." Then when crossing the street I'd say "we're holding hands because we're crossing the street." As they started to understand the pattern I'd ask questions like "what are we going to need to do when we get to the street?" and hear back "hold hands."

Once they had the pattern down pretty well, I started waiting to let them initiate the hand-holding in cases where that was safe. When coming up on a small street where I had good enough visibility to see that no cars were coming I'd wait and see what they did. If they reached up for my hand I'd praise them, while if they stepped into the street without taking hands I'd stop them, look surprised and firm, and correct them.

As they got this too, I'd start letting them get slightly ahead of me, again in the same cases where it was safe, so that now they actually needed to stop on their own. If they didn't stop, I could reach out and pick them up, and again tell them that they needed to hold hands.

I didn't keep notes at the time, but I think this took about 2-3 months of walks for each kid to go from having no idea that they needed to hold hands to me trusting them to run ahead and stop at the corner every time. I also don't completely remember when they learned it, but I think maybe just after they turned two?

Referenced in:

Comment via: google plus, facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Ozy and Vasili Review Lilo and Stitch

Sometimes my seven-year-old, Vasili, wants to see some godawful movie that makes me want to melt my eyeballs out of my head.

via Thing of Things June 27, 2025

Elixir's Last Dance

On May 18th, the contra dance band Elixir had their last gig ever. The dance was packed: there were three hundred people. It was the only dance BIDA has ever done where they sold tickets. People flew from across the country just to hear Elixir play one la…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts June 5, 2025

Workshop House case study

Lauren Hoffman interviewed me about Workshop House and wrote this post about a community I’m working on building in DC.

via Home April 30, 2025

more     (via openring)