Teaching kids the importance of helmet safety

Sometimes as a parent you have to let go and trust in your children to do the right thing. These situations are often helped with the knowledge that you have taught them well. Of course there are lots of influences in your children that can be out of your control. Things like other children’s behavior and the way other parents behave with your kids can be two of the most difficult to deal with.

Obviously accidents happen, bruised knees and scrapped elbows can never be helped but here are a couple of tips to make sure these are the only accidents you deal with.

1. Teach the while they’re young

As soon as they are old enough to ride a bike, they are old enough to learn about safety, even a child who is wheeling round the house in a fire engine can be encouraged to wear a firemans hat. This sort of early encouragement can help to reinforce the message of being safety conscious in older years. Most accidents don’t happen in toddlers or even pre-teen. They usually happen when children are teenagers and by enforcing safety rules with younger children, their teenage selves are more likely to take notice of bike safety.

2. Get them excited about professionals

Using children’s and teenage idols for positive reinforcement, dissipates the “uncool” stigma around safety gear. Even in extreme sports like skateboarding, the professionals are made to wear safety gear when taking part in competitions. With the success of the Tour de France and the Olympics Cycling has quickly become a popular sporting medium with popular idols such as Bradley Wiggins reinforcing the need for safety gear.

3. Make it a Toy

Firemans helmets, Buzz Lightyear gear, and I’ve even seen a helmet that makes your child look like a dinosaur. You can get it all, and by letting your child pick their favorite it all helps with the positive reinforcement we were talking about earlier.

What are your tips on protecting children when they are away from you? Do you have any tried and tested techniques you swear by?

This article was written by Irwin Mitchell, specialist solicitors for head injury compensation as part of their campaign to educate and reinforce messages of safety to prevent injuries in future generations.