So much time spent educating. Three events scheduled at my kids’ school to stop vehicles and assess whether kids were buckled up in the back seat. Education and positive reinforcement passed along. Three events evidently worth nothing. I try not to get too jaded: despite my Type A personality, I have a very much live and let live philosophy of life. However, when I’ve spent so much of my time educating my peers and my kids’ friends on the dangers of sitting in the front seat and not wearing seat belts, I get mad. Did they not learn anything?
Every morning and afternoon, I see kids in the front seat, some with seat belts, some without. If they don’t have their seat belts on, it’s because they have their backpacks on. I’m sure they’re in the front seat because their parents are driving them to school from their houses just 2-3 blocks away from school. Mmmm hmmm, that close. Mind you, I’m not throwing stones. We don’t live that close, but *I’m* not one that gets going very quickly in the morning and neither is my daughter, so even if we did live that close to school, I’m sure we’d be eating breakfast on the way, lol. But still. It’s close enough that if they were to smash that pretty little car into the back of that soccermommobile, the airbag would go off and the consequences would be quite dire. Or even better yet, the 3 row mongo SUV where the carpool mom piles everyone into the first 2 rows because it’s too hard to get into the 3rd row. Uh oh, I think I’m getting jaded.
I wonder what causes these parents are into-what could I do that would make them see the error of their ways? Let’s see. Starbucks club? Oh, I could order a Café au Lait with breast milk please. Hahahaha! Seriously, I just don’t get why people hold their kids’ safety in their hands-something they control so easily-and throw it away. I guess it will take a tragedy like this PSA demonstrates (graphic at end) at this school to drive the point home. And then it will really be tough not to say “I told you so.”
I posted about this in the forums the same day you posted the blog (http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=77058).
My dd’s school is only K-3 so pretty much 90% of the school should be riding in some kind of restraint (PA’s law is 8/80)…I would estimate that less than 10% ride in something. More than that use a seat belt but not many more.
I remember distinctly an afternoon last year when dd watched one of her friends climb into the front seat of their family’s minivan (no seat belt either). Dd turned to me and asked me why her friend’s mom didn’t love her enough to make her sit in the back seat! Dd was in first grade!
you know, the other day, my younger one tried to get away with wearing his backpack in the car (it was raining and I had the choice of taking the boys to school and letting Ruthie make her bus that picks her up at our house or driving them to their bus stop and having her miss her bus, thereby having at least a partial meltdown that would ruin her day)… I pulled over and refused to move the car until he unbuckled, removed it, then rebuckled.
I asked him why he tried to do that, as he knew I always told them not to wear their backpacks in the car.
“But, Mo-om!” (my least favorite words)… “all the kids at school do it!”
I swear, the lecture that then ensued from my lips on why it wasn’t safe, what could happen just from the hard books in his backpack pressing against his spine in a crash, let alone the compression factors and it affecting how he fits his seat almost made him late to school that day.
But it was worth it. I got a note home that he was talking in class… when I asked him why… he said he was trying to tell his friends about what I told him, so they would stop wearing their backpacks in cars.
I couldn’t fault him. Of all mornings for him to have done this, it had been so foggy you couldn’t see the end of the block till you got there (we’re in the middle of our block) AND it was raining.
I was driving extra slow because I was terrified someone was gonna get in a crash. It made me long for next year, when all the kids will take one bus.
So all this lack of safety is contagious for kids… and I hate that I’m having to lecture a kid when if it was all that every kid ever knew and did, then they wouldn’t try to be less safe.
Today he asked me when he can ride in the front seat in no booster… just like his friend who is 3″ shorter than him…
If you showed that video to the kids they might BEG to wear their seatbelts…
I think in the end all you can do is keep trying and hope that it gets through to someone. If even one person changes their ways because of all your effort, isn’t it worth it? I mean, we learn what our parents teach. So if one kid’s mom makes him sit in a booster and wear his belt, maybe he’ll grow up and make sure his kids are properly restrained, and that will influence his kids’ friends… Our eventual circle of influence is much wider that we sometimes realize. It may seem hopeless but in the long run I’m sure it is not!