Tiny Hearts Education shares top tips for teaching kids road safety and reducing avoidable accidents

A former Australian paramedic has given her top tips for keeping kids safe around traffic and teaching them about road safety. 

Tiny Hearts Education founder Nikki Jurcutz said she ‘ingrained’ road safety habits into her children from ‘the moment they could walk’ teaching them to always hold an adult’s hand and wait for the green man and ‘funny noise’ when crossing the street. 

She also said there are steps parents can take to ‘reduce the risk of an accident to absolute zero’ including having the person staying home with the kids wave goodbye with them as you reverse out of the drive way. 

‘In 2018, of all the kids who passed away due to some form of road traffic accident, 29 per cent were pedestrians, and 5.9 cent were riding their bikes,’ the mum-of-two wrote in an Instagram post. 

‘Those numbers are just too high, and while they may have been exactly that, accidents; road-aware kids come from proactive parents who take the time to teach them.’

Nikki lists the way she taught her kids, Nahla and Wolfe, about road safety starting with holding their hand to cross the street every time from the very beginning.

She also advised describing to your little one what you’re doing when you cross the road like telling them to stop and look right for cars and bikes, left and right again. 

Thirdly, the parenting guru said to teach them always cross at a zebra or traffic light crossing where possible, only go when the green man appears and stop to wait a few steps back from the curb. 

Nikki also shared what she and her husband Chris do to reduce the risk of road accidents and keep the kids safe at home and out and about. 

The mum-of-two said she ‘ingrained’ road safety habits into her kids teaching them to always hold an adult’s hand and wait for the green man and ‘funny noise’ when crossing the street 

Firstly, Nikki recommended, if you have two children, to get the youngest out first, carrying them before getting the second out so no one runs off while their backs are turned. 

‘Whoever is staying at home with the kids waves goodbye from the door or porch while the other reverses to reduce the risk of an accident to absolute zero,’ she said.  

Parents should walk behind their car before reversing to ‘triple check’ it’s clear from small children and teach kids not to ever play in the driveway or around cars. 

‘Whoever is staying at home with the kids waves goodbye from the door or porch while the other reverses to reduce the risk of an accident to absolute zero,’ she said.

With Wolf and Nahla , Nikki said teaches them to always hold hands when crossing the street or in the car park ‘every single time’, and stop chasing balls once they leave a grassed area.  

‘It’s hard work to introduce and maintain these principles. But I do it in the hope that one day when they aren’t with me while near the road, they’ll keep themselves safe,’ the medic mum said. 

The post quickly racked up hundreds of ‘likes’ and thankful comments from parents saying they will implement the accident-reducing rules. 

‘Love this! It’s so so important for all to practice road safety,’ one mum wrote while another noted: ‘The part about the ball is such a great one!’