Full Notification

Part of heading back to school is actually getting your kids back to school safely. According to the Centers for Disease Control, on average, there is one pedestrian death every two hours and a pedestrian injury every eight minutes in the United States. Vehicles and kids can be a very scary combination whether the child is walking, biking, riding or driving.
If there will not be adult supervision here are some safety rules:
•Always walk in a group
•Take the same, safest route. Don't look for shortcuts
•Always use crosswalks and the assistance of crossing guards when available
•Be aware of your surroundings
•Don't talk to strangers
•Do not wear headphones
Wearing headphones can be distracting, making us less attentive to our surroundings and possibly run into other people, trees or cars. They cause us to be less aware of dangerous situations. If your child must wear headphones ask, him or her to only have them on one ear so they can still hear.
The headphone rule should be enforced for bike riding as well. Here are a few bike-riding safety tips.
•Obey traffic laws just like vehicles do. Bikers must stop at stop signs and red lights.
•When riding a bike always wear a helmet.
•If your child is younger encourage him or her to walk the bike across the street.
One of the best ways to make sure your kids are safe is to help them get a good night's rest.
When a child is sleep deprived he or she is not able to make good, quick decisions. After a summer of staying up late and sleeping in, that early morning alarm can be torture. The best way to get kids back on a sleep schedule is to start a few weeks before school and every night move the alarm about 15 minutes closer to the school wake-up time.
Cell phones are one of the worst offenders for stealing sleep. Consider giving phones a bedtime as well as your kids. At a certain time, all phones are powered off and tucked into their chargers in a common area of the house, not a bedroom, to be charged overnight and let everyone in the house get some rest.