Cheryl Martin (Host): This is Children's Health Checkup where we answer parents' most common questions about raising healthy and happy kids. I'm Cheryl Martin. Every family school commute looks different. So, how do you know when your child is really ready to walk, bike or take the bus. Mary Carter, Injury Prevention Program Coordinator, at Children's Health is here to share expert advice to help parents make safe, confident decisions about school transportation. Mary, thanks for coming on to give parents some tips.

Mary Carter, CPST: Glad to be here.

Host: First, let's start with the big question. How can parents figure out if their child is ready to walk, bike, or ride the bus to school? What should they be thinking about?

Mary Carter, CPST: While it may seem that young kids understand concepts like crosswalk signs or stoplight color changes such as they know that red means stop, or green means go from a young age, according to research, 10 years old is when a child is able to start judging the speed of another object correctly. So, that's why the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that 10 years old is when we're starting to do that without assistance or supervision.

The next part of that is looking at how well does your child navigate traffic laws with or without assistance. Do you have to remind them to look left than right, than left again before crossing the street? Do they know what a yield sign is versus a green light? Until they can master these traffic rules without assistance, they may need some more time to do that with you before they can do that without you. The good news is that you can start walking to school or helping your child ride the bus to school with your assistance from a young age, but we just may need to give them a little bit more time if they can't demonstrate those things without your assistance.

 Finally, of course, if there is a good distance between walking or biking to school, how well are they able to have that navigation process without you, right? So, we talked about the traffic laws and being able to judge speeds, but can they actually navigate the route without being reminded, which left or right turn to take? Do they know how to handle strangers, meaning if a stranger approaches them? Do they know how to evade a stranger, walk away, run away, call for help? Do they know not to get into a vehicle if they're asked to get into a car from a stranger? So, we want to make sure that they have all of those components before they do it by themselves. But the great news is that, of course, they can do these from a young age with your assistance and guidance.

Host: I'm so glad you are discussing this. So really, the parent should have, let's say, several sessions with the child to go through all of this.

Mary Carter, CPST: Correct. And the way that we look at this is it can be a little fuzzy memory-wise for adults about when was the first time that you walked or biked without help, right? But honestly, walking or biking or riding in terms of the traffic laws is not that much different than driving in terms of all that you have to learn. So when we were learning how to drive, and that's a little bit easier for parents to remember of what was it like when you learned how to drive, you think about all the little things that you had to learn, right? In order to do that confidently by yourself, somebody had to watch you be able to do all of these things multiple times without help before they would let you get on the road by yourself.

Host: So, the parent has to do the same thing with the child, whether the child is walking or biking?

Mary Carter, CPST: Or even riding the bus, meaning if they are not paying attention to the little details that we do as parents, to make sure that they're not standing too close to the road or that they're paying attention to when they're getting onto the bus, make sure there's not a car coming. If they can't demonstrate that without assistance, then we want to make sure that they're not doing it by themselves too early.

Host: So, you talked about a young age for walking to school. So, you're not saying a particular age. The parent should just determine that. I mean, would you say what the youngest age would probably be?

Mary Carter, CPST: Well, if they're with you, they can walk really at any age. The bike is a little bit more of a skill, right? And then, of course with the bus, meaning if we're talking about going to school, kindergarten, first grade, that kind of a thing, if you are there with them, you're helping them through that process. So in terms of if you are helping your child or they're like in-- they even call them like walking carpools, so meaning that maybe you and some friends have kids that go to the same school, that there's always an adult with a kindergartner or a first grader. As long as they're with an adult who is guiding them, they can walk to school at any age. Now, biking does involve knowing how to ride a bike safely, right? And then getting on the bus, if there's an adult there present, helping them get on and off the bus and watch for traffic. They can do that at any age supervised.

Host: Now, you were talking about having that conversation with your kids. If they interact with strangers, do you have suggestions of how parents should handle that specific language?

Mary Carter, CPST: So for the language, we don't want to put tons of fear into the kids, right? We want to just make them safe. We don't want them to make them afraid to go walk if we're giving them permission to do so, especially if we're going in a group or we're creating a safe enough environment, that this is a skill that they need to learn. So, the way that we can talk to our kids about that is say, "If someone you doesn't know starts talking to you, just keep walking. You don't have to respond. If you don't know them and they're trying to talk to you, you don't have to talk to a stranger, right? If they are following you, meaning like you are not trying to talk to a stranger, and the stranger keeps following you, then you need to go get help, okay?"

And then, for your specific area, you need to outline for them very clearly what does going for help look like. Is it this neighbor? Is it calling for help? What do they need to do on their route to school? And how do they go get help? Because that can be hard for a child, especially like when you said, "Go get help," okay, well, what does that look like, right? So when we talk to them, we talk to them about kind of like, "If this happens, then this is what you do." But we don't have to go into the depths and the details of like the fear mongering of what could happen. We just say, "If this happens, this is what you do." So, what that happens for the child is they learn, "Okay, this stranger is talking to me. I'm not supposed to talk to strangers. I keep walking. The stranger is offering me a car ride. I don't get in that car and I need to go get help." So, that's kind of how you can contextualize it to where they're safe, but they have the confidence of like, "Okay, if this happens, this is what I do."

Host: Great. Now, what advice do you have? You talked a little bit about this, but do you want to go into more detail about how families can practice the route before school starts or even test if their child is ready? I mean, like how many times should they practice it or any more details on that?

Mary Carter, CPST: Sure. So, there's not necessarily a set amount of, "Well, they've done it so many times." But what we would majorly look at is, "Do I have to remind them? Are they distracted?" And something else with this too, the major takeaway that I have from that is, if I'm having to constantly remind you, "Hey, kiddo, you've got to look left, right, left. You can't be talking to your friend when you cross the street," they may know it, they're demonstrating it. So until I have seen with some consistency, and I think that's a key word there, consistency, that I don't have to constantly remind the kiddo to look both ways, that they're not distracted when they walk across or bike across the crossway; that they know like, "Hey, there is a yield sign right here, and that means I have to stop and look. I can't just dart across." Those are the kind of things that we want to see, that we practice it, we do it, we observe it.

Host: You talked about if they're taking the bus. In that case, the parents would be at the bus stop with them until the bus arrives. So, any advice for what parents should teach their kids before they hop on for the first time, or if there's any etiquette once they're on the bus?

Mary Carter, CPST: So even If they are helping the little one get to the bus, that's just the first step, right? We want to make sure that they're not standing right next to the bus, right? Like, these are the little things that we have to think about. We need to teach them. We got to stand at least 10 feet away from where the bus is going to pull up, because we want to give the bus room to come in, right? Especially if they're in a situation where they do have to cross an area where there's still traffic. And that can happen at certain bus stops, that we need to wait for the bus stop sign to be out. We need to make sure the bus driver has opened the door and made eye contact with us, that they know that we're getting onto the bus.

And then, from there, we also have to think about bus etiquette, right? Stay in your seat. We don't get up. We don't distract the driver. And whether we are helping them get onto the bus or not, we definitely want to have conversations with our kids, that even if they're not ready to get onto the bus by themselves, we still have to teach them how to be on the bus, right? So, we want to have those conversations more than one time of like, "Do you get up when you go on the bus?" No, you stay seated. "Do you ask the driver a bunch of questions?" No. Let them focus, let them drive. And then, of course, something else too with bus safety, even from a young age, especially since buses a lot of times will have different age groups-- bullying, so that they know what bullying is and that they can talk to you about it.

Host: Any suggestions for how they should handle that bullying?

Mary Carter, CPST: For the bullying, if someone's saying something mean to you, first, you say, "Stop. I don't like that." And if they continue that at the appropriate time and not while the bus driver is driving, right? Once the ride is over and they're getting off, they need to tell the bus driver, or they need to tell a teacher, depending on what the school protocols are. And they also need to tell you as a parent that something has been happening, that they don't say mean words back. They just say, "Stop, please don't do that." And that they also make sure to tell either the bus driver-- once the bus driver has stopped-- what's happening. Or if they don't feel comfortable doing that right in front of the bully, to tell a teacher and tell you as well as a parent when they get home.

Host: Now, is there any information they need to know for boarding the bus back home? Is anything, any different?

Mary Carter, CPST: So boarding the bus back home, typically speaking, the school will have a standard guideline on that, meaning that they will typically have teachers out front, just for their own safety. Meaning that there's typically teachers, especially for the elementary school-aged kids, they're going to have teachers that are helping them in those process because they want to make sure that the kids are getting on the right bus, that the right kids are getting on the right bus. Some schools will have like bus passes, some schools will have lists. And then the teachers will help them get onto the bus. But definitely, if your child is not demonstrating that they know a lot of the traffic laws without your assistance, you want to be there at the right time for the bus pickup.

Host: One of the reasons I ask that, I have heard of instances where a child was placed on the wrong bus.

Mary Carter, CPST: Right. That can happen, especially with how many kids that they've got. And you want to make sure that if that does happen, if a kid is on the wrong bus, they need to talk to their bus driver. They need to say, "Hey, I'm not supposed to be on this bus. I'm not in the right area." Because at that point in time, their number one help would be to tell the bus driver like, "This is not my neighborhood" or those kind of things. The bus driver can, at least, at the very minimum get them back to the school.

Host: This is great. Mary, anything else you want to share? Either your one big takeaway for parents trying to make these decisions before the school year begins?

Mary Carter, CPST: I would say that you would really want to look at their ability to do this on their own consistently. In terms of that you're not reminding them a bunch of times if you're even contemplating doing this without supervision, that just like when you were, like we talked about like when you were learning to drive, whoever taught you how to drive watched you multiple times do everything right before they let you do it by yourself. And the way that we build that confidence is by doing it with them. So, if you're thinking that this is something down the road that you want to do, then start young. Like, "Hey, I want my child to be able to ride or bike or do the bus at school down the line." This doesn't happen overnight. So if that's your goal, that's something that you would like for them, because these are great things because it teaches them responsibility, right? Like they're taking responsibility for getting themselves to school. That's can be a really good self-confidence booster. It can be a great way for them to learn self-responsibility. These are all good things.

 Knowing that's where we want to get them, and if they're not doing it yet, then go ahead and start walking them to school, even if it's one day a week, right? You're teaching them over the course of time how to look at traffic lights, how to do all of these things. So whether it's with or without you, if that's something that you're thinking you would like to do in the future, look at what they can do now and what you can do with them to teach them the right way to do it. And then, that way they can safely do it later on.

Host: I love this because a parent doesn't have to rush this. You could start out and say, "Well, this was good." They're not quite ready yet, as you're saying to yourself, but maybe by next year.

Mary Carter, CPST: Right. It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing. And honestly, it's a great family bonding thing too. Like, it's a great thing to say, "Hey, my mom walked me to school," or "My dad walked me," or whoever my caregiver is. During these times, it's a great family bonding thing and you're teaching them, and you're also building their confidence that they can learn to do things.

And then, just one last little note. Kids model what they see, not what they hear you say. So, this is a great bonding experience like we talked about as they're learning how to do the traffic laws, whether they're biking or walking with you, the bus, whatever they're doing with you. But if you are on your phone, doing an across the crosswalk or if you are wearing headphones or earphones, they're going to do what they see, not what they hear you say. So as you're teaching them, make sure that you are modeling exactly the behavior that you want them to do when you're not there. So, that we teach them exactly the way to walk safely, bike safely or safely, ride the bus safely to school, based off of what they see.

Host: Mary Carter, I know that the parents appreciate your insights that will help them make the best decision for their children's safety. Thank you. Great information

Mary Carter, CPST: Glad to be here.

Host: For more information, visit childrens.com/backtoschool. Thank you for listening to Children's Health Checkup. If you found this podcast helpful, please rate and review it or share the episode and please follow Children's Health on your social channels.