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Walk to School!
When I was a child I walked to and from my infant school every day, from age four, and so did both of my brothers and many others who attended my school. My school was over a mile from my home and there were plenty of busy roads to cross. Accidents will happen, they always have and always will, but to my knowledge all the while I attended infant school there was never a pupil death at my school caused by a road traffic accident.Nowadays, concerned about safety, the majority of parents severely restrict their children's freedom until their children are at least nine years old, or more. Most primary school children, and some who are even older, are ferried to and from school by car and consequently lack pedestrian-versus-traffic experience. I live opposite a Junior School which has, sadly, seen two tragedies in recent years and I often witness groups of teenagers drift across roads without any apparent care or thought of the dangers. We should teach our children to be independent and aware of traffic dangers from a young age. It is vital to their personal development. These are skills that they must all acquire.
When parents ferry their children to and from school they often overlook their responsibility towards road safety. Parents who are not confident that their junior-school-age children can safely cross busy roads, on their own, have not done enough. One or two token sessions offered at school is hardly a start. Roads are too dangerous. Awareness of the dangers needs to be ingrained, totally ingrained. This can only be done by starting young. One mistake is one too many. Children of age four and five can, and do, learn. In fact, they are often more willing and careful pupils than slightly older children. I know. I often waited minutes at the side of a busy road while my children decided it was safe to cross. It can be frustrating, let go of their hand and a four-year-old, who has been made aware that cars kill, will usually wait for the entire road to be completely traffic-free, in both directions, for as far as the eye can see, before putting one foot in it!
Remember that safety advert featuring the green-cross man which was shown in the early 1970s? How strange, or even shocking, it would seem if shown today. Its two child actors (a small girl, and an even younger boy) are a good three or four years younger than any children we see out on their own nowadays.
But I think that this is sad. Our children have lost much. Most, if not all, of their friends come from school or from some scouting group which we ferry them to and from. Our children do not interact as they once did with their peers from the streets around their homes. Furthermore, they are nothing like as fit as the typical child of thirty years ago.
Walking to school is good exercise, it encourages social contact, is environmentally friendly and could well save your child's life, not end it. However, it will take a massive effort to reverse the current trend. But I, for one, would be well pleased to see the end of the dreaded School Run.
© Copyright 2003. All rights reserved.Derek Jennings.