5 Essential Tips for Parents as Kids Return to School and Travel Independently
As children return to school after the holidays, many will travel independently; walking, biking, scootering, or taking public transport.
Whilst this can be both an exciting and nerve-wracking time, encouraging independence helps children to build confidence and life skills.
Here are five tips for parents to help ease the process and ensure peace of mind.
1) Establish a Safe Route
Before school starts, take some time to practice the route with your child. Take the safest roads and pathways and be sure to cross over roads by using pedestrian and courtesy crossings, or at controlled intersections with traffic lights. Make sure they know key landmarks so they can easily navigate their way to and from school, and where they can safely go to, to ask for help if needed.
2) Teach Stranger Safety
Have regular conversations about the importance of staying aware of their surroundings (people and vehicles), and how to respond to strangers if approached. Teach them about 'safe strangers' like other families with children their age, shop assistants, and others in your neighbourhood who they can approach if they feel unsafe.
3) Equip Them with Emergency Contacts
Ensure your child knows important phone numbers, including yours and any other emergency contacts. An Emergency Card or Tag is a perfect solution for this. It's durable and easily attached to the inside or outside of a school bag, providing them with essential details like emergency contacts and medical information if they need to give it to someone. In a stressful situation, children may struggle to remember phone numbers, so having them written down can provide reassurance and peace of mind.
4) Create a Check-In Routine
If your child has access to a mobile phone, set up a simple routine where your child checks in with you at certain points of their journey - like when they leave school to come home, reach a specific landmark, or arrive at school, this way, you know they're safe.
5) Empower Their Confidence
Independence is about building confidence. Encourage your child by supporting them to develop their own problem-solving skills. Remind them that they can handle situations by asking for help or using their Emergency Card or Tag if they need it.
Over time with your guidance, children can embrace the independence of navigating their own way to and from school while you have peace of mind.
An Emergency Card or Tag acts as an extra layer of safety, ensuring that in case of any unforeseen situation, your child has vital information accessible at all times, and you can be reached when needed.
⚠️ DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS. If you love them, don't leave them. ⚠️
It's a message we share time and time again, and this year, we're calling on you to help us spread that message further.
Did you know that calls to SPCA about dogs left inside hot cars made up a whopping 11% of all welfare calls last summer? This is a completely preventable issue, and one which is causing hundreds of dogs (often loved pets) to suffer.
Here are some quick facts to share with the dog owners in your life:
👉 The temperature inside a car can heat to over 50°C in less than 15 minutes.
👉 Parking in the shade and cracking windows does little to help on a warm day. Dogs rely on panting to keep cool, which they can't do in a hot car.
👉 This puts dogs at a high risk of heatstroke - a serious condition for dogs, with a mortality rate between 39%-50%.
👉 It is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act to leave a dog in a hot vehicle if they are showing signs of heat stress. You can be fined, and prosecuted.
SPCA has created downloadable resources to help you spread the message even further. Posters, a flyer, and a social media tile can be downloaded from our website here: www.spca.nz...
We encourage you to use these - and ask your local businesses to display the posters if they can. Flyers can be kept in your car and handed out as needed.
This is a community problem, and one we cannot solve alone. Help us to prevent more tragedies this summer by sharing this post.
On behalf of the animals - thank you ❤️
Poll: Would you rather: Christmas in summer forever or winter forever?
Just a bit of a fun poll to get you thinking.
If you had to live out your Christmas days, would you prefer it was a summer Christmas or a winter Christmas?
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62% Summer
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36.5% Winter
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1.5% Other - I'll share below
Worst Xmas ever?
There's a a lot of planning that goes into Christmas day and sometimes things just don't go to plan. But it can be a good thing - a family mishap or hilarious memory that you can laugh about in Christmases to come.
Whether you burnt the dinner or were stranded at an airport...
Share your Christmas mishaps below!
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