Day: October 30, 2007

Traffic

[modified from a comment I left at mothering.com]

Maybe fear is the key. The Dr Sears “The Discipline Book” has a good section on how to help toddlers to be safe around traffic, by letting the young toddler play in the driveway (while watching him extremely closely) and showing strong, even over-acted emotions, especially fear when s/he is going close to the road (screaming, grimacing, carrying him away).

For us something totally different worked to get even stronger fear, Leilani is deadly afraid of traffic.

We live in a quiet neighborhood with very little traffic, but her beloved kitten Kiko was ran over after she just had it for 3 months – she saw the body, saw my grief including tears, the “funeral” and heard the explanation “He played in the road, a car ran over him” hundreds of times (we did read “Cat Heaven” probably hundreds of times too)

While at the time we were very worried about traumatizing Leilani, who was only 19 months old, and we still are sad about loosing the kitten, the results now are a blessing (thank you Kiko).

We can walk at the quiet street without holding hands, when Leilani hears a car (still 2 blocks away) she comes running to me and I need to hold her until it is past. On busy streets and when crossing she wants to be carried. I have a feeling that this created a totally thoroughly lasting impression, and we’ll have a lot less traffic worries than other parents.