One of the toughest things you face when you are trying to keep your children safe with car seats is resistance from other people… While a stranger or casual acquaintance’s rolled eyes or judgment might not mean much to you… It’s a whole other story when it is your parents or in-laws or grandparents… Our elders, who we have been brought up to respect and listen to.
How often has an older person, your child’s grandparents, a member of your community, accused you of “coddling” your children? Of wrapping them in cotton wool? How many have referred to the new generation as “soft”, because we treat them like they might break at any moment? How many have started conversations with, “When we were young…” Or “You turned out just fine”? After all, there is a degree of truth in their frustrations – things were so very different “back in the day”. It’s hard to deal with.
If your child never travels in a car with their grandparents, you can simply nod your head or excuse yourself from the conversation. But many of us rely on our parents or in laws to look after our little ones so we can work. What a wonderful gift to our children to be able to spend this special time with their grandparents.
How do you approach the topic of car seats with grandparents?
How do you communicate how critically important strapping your child properly into a car seat every single time is, without offending your child’s grandparents or hurting their feelings?
It may sound silly… Some would (and do) say, just tell them… They’re your children so it’s your rules. However, there are many others who do respect much of what the older generation has to offer. Cultures who are brought up to show their elders respect, no matter what.
What then is the answer? I have an idea… It really is just an idea… And one that I have used a few times when faced with an irritated older person. It is worth a try… Share a few facts that you’ve read.
“I read this article the other day that shared some amazing facts comparing when I was born with now and it was so interesting!”
Now, let me be that article for you
1. In 1983 there were 2,704,795 cars on the road compared to the 12,027,860 of this year. How crazy? That is just short of 10 million more cars on the roads. No wonder there is always so much traffic! And how much more likely is an accident when there are that many cars and people on the roads…
2. In the 1980s, people weren’t in such a hurry! I was almost run off the road by a car that must have been going easily 160km earlier today! It must have been quite nice to commute on quieter slower roads. (Ask them to share a story about what the cars of the 80s were like…)
3. There were no minibus taxis driving like they owned the roads in the 80s! I can’t even imagine a world without those guys stopping dead in the middle of the road or pushing into traffic at 100kmph! What was that like?
4. In the 1980s nobody had ever heard of a cell phone!! That old brick Nokia only came to South Africa in 1995! There was an article two years ago in Essentials magazine with facts about cell phones. In 2015 South Africa had a population of 51.8 million, but around 80 million mobile connections. I wonder how many cell phones are in the average car…
5. The World Health Organisation reported in late 2015, that South Africa has the worst rate of drunk driving and drunk driving related deaths in the world. A recent study showed that as many as three-quarters of South Africans drive under the influence of alcohol. If you look back at the number of cars on the roads, that means as many as 9 million cars are being driven right now by somebody who is under the influence.
6. In the 1980s news was slow. Now, in a world of social media, every loss is noted and shared. If there was a car accident in the 80s, your nearest and dearest might know, but nobody else would. Now you might find out about somebody you know being in an accident on social media minutes after it happened. The fact that there was less chance that you heard about it in the 80s, doesn’t mean that children who weren’t strapped in weren’t dying in car crashes.
The leading causes of road deaths in South Africa are speeding, distracted driving and drunk driving
Did you know that as cars became more common, they began implementing speed limits to see whether reducing speed would reduce the number of accidents? The graph of accident reductions and the decreasing speed limit showed a single line. This is common sense, as if you are moving too fast you can’t move around obstacles or corners… You have far less time to stop to avoid a crash… And, of course, the higher the speed the greater the crash force on the car and the occupants.
According to Get It Online, a recent report stated that up to 25% of road accidents are caused by talking or texting on a cell phone while driving. This distraction results in a 37% decrease in parietal lobe activity in the brain. Also, a single use of a phone represents an average of 52 seconds of distracted driving. Therefore, at 60kmph, this is equivalent to driving “blind” for one kilometre, increasing the likelihood of an accident by four times.
I really don’t think we need to convince anyone that drinking and driving leads to death. The slightest amount of alcohol has been proven to slow reflexes and concentration and impairs the processing and rational response to your senses.
When it comes to our precious children, why put their lives into the hands of others? Strangers in over 12 million cars… 9 million of them having likely been drinking. 3 million of them playing with their cell phones… And all of them driving too fast. And 93% of the children in those cars are jumping around the back seat, distracting their parents or grandparents, because they are not using the car seats they so desperately need.
Sadly, car passenger deaths are the fourth leading cause of unnatural deaths of children in South Africa.
CAR SEATS SAVE LIVES.
Please share this article on all your social media channels. Tag the grandparents and friends. “Accidentally” cc that person you have been trying to get through to in an email.
With statistics saying that up to 93% of people aren’t strapping in their kids… We ALL know somebody who is adding to that number.
“You have the power to save a little life. One share, seen by one person, who straps in one child, saves a life. #CarseatFullstop. Every child. Every time. No matter what.”
If you are on the market for a new car seat, you can support #CarseatFullstop by buying your little one of the safest car seats on the market through us. You are welcome to contact Mandy Lee Miller, creator and director of #CarseatFullstop, directly for judgement free advice on which car seat your child should be in on carseatfullstop@gmail.com.
If you have an old car seat you no longer use, please consider donating it to our very favourite NPO, Wheel Well. You can drop your seat at your closest Renault dealership and they will get the seat to Peggie and her team. They will clean and safety check it, before giving it a new home with somebody in need for a small donation.
Breaking down the cost of car seats | Parenting Hub
[…] from the manual, and you avoid speeding, distracted driving and any other thing that adds to the incredible danger of driving on South Africa’s roads… You are an awesome parent / grandparent / caregiver and your child is as safe as you can […]