You’ve reached super parent status—you’ve opened the wide new world of ride on toys to your little one and now you’re wondering how to keep them as safe as possible. We’re glad—toy safety is so important and, sadly, it’s not something that most people consider.  We’re here to help—here you’ll find some crucial toy safety tips and play advice specific for the 21st century kid!

Make Toy Safety Fun with these Toy Safety Tips

•    Lock out the high speed.  First time drivers don’t need options—they need safety and focus.  Using the option that many ride on toys offer, you can help your child learn how to use this new piece of technology without worrying about excessive speed.

•    Teach good habits early. If your child’s ride on toy has safety belts, make sure that your child knows that the first step to fun is to buckle up! Children learn by repetition and consistency; in this case, these toy safety habits will create a lifetime of vehicle safety.

•    Adjust to Each Driver.  If you’re sharing one ride on toy with multiple siblings, make sure that any adjustable seats are moved to the proper position for each child. What does this mean? The driver should be able to comfortably reach the accelerator pedal and push it without stretching.  When this is the case, the odds of bucking and hopping on acceleration will be greatly reduced.  

•    Identify the Toy’s Parts.  One of the keys to toy safety is knowing how each toy works.  When you introduce the vehicle to your child, make sure you point out the steering wheel/handlebars and how they move and steer.  You’ll also want to teach your child about how the accelerator works, and that the toy will stop automatically when the foot is removed.

•    Create a Safe Environment.  Before you let your child take off, improve toy safety by making sure that he or she is headed into friendly terrain.  Put the ride on toy on a flat surface, and remove any obstacles that might become a crash hazard.  Look for pickup trucks with the tailgate down, steep inclines, nearby bodies of water (swimming pools count!), low branches, curbs, etc.  

•    Guide Your Child.  Toy safety is only as good as the instructions given, so when you’re ready to let your child drive for the first time, stand in front of him or her and test his or her ability.  Ask your excited child to come to you by stepping on the accelerator.  This not only helps you improve toy safety by encouraging slow acceleration, but it also increases their confidence as they keep you in their eye sight while doing something new and potentially scary.  

•    Anticipate Some Bumps in the Road.  New drivers can sometimes be nervous about this new adventure and their new freedom.  That’s normal—and even the sound of the motor can be disorienting to them. Keep encouraging them.  Don’t be alarmed, also, if your new driver has trouble bouncing between forward and reverse.  Most ride on toys anticipate this kind of confusion and compensate for a certain amount of this—just keep teaching your new driver and remember how hard it was for you to remember the difference between the brake and gas pedal when you started driving.  

•    Enjoy the Journey.  While the process of teaching your child the ins and outs of this new ride on toy may be frustrating, try to remember that this is meant to be fun. Stay patient, keep yourself from raising your voice, and focus on the positives (and on toy safety!).  It’s giving you practice for a few years down the road, and your child is learning new skills along the way.

Using these toy safety tips can help you not only enjoy the new experience, as you watch your child enjoy the ride on toy, but can also keep you stress free in the process.  

Ride On Toys Can Teach Big Lessons Too

While toy safety tips may not seem like the most exciting thing in the world, the truth is that teaching your children to use a vehicle like this can be an important step in their development.  According to Kathleen Alfano, Ph.D., these types of battery-powered vehicles help to develop motor skills and logical/spatial thinking.  What can you help develop while teaching toy safety tips to your new drivers?

Directional and Spatial Understanding

We all know that kids learn by doing, and that’s why it’s so important to take an active role in teaching your children how to properly use their ride-on vehicle.  When they learn how to move their new truck or ATV or car forward and reverse, left and right, fast and slow, stop and go, they cement the understanding of those ideas in their brain. Their ride-on cars become a little laboratory for spatial skill development. Make sure they understand the toy safety tips that you teach them in the beginning, and make a habit of carefully supervising their use of their ride-on toy.  

Imaginative Play

When you provide your kids with a tool like a ride-on toy, you provide them with a ticket to anywhere their imagination can take them.  Of course, the car will become a vehicle to fun—but did you know that giving them a tool like this can also help them foster imaginative play? They may suddenly mimic the routines they’ve seen you participate in, going to get gas, driving to work or the grocery store or grandma’s house, and even taking their stuffed friends along for the ride.  Doing this themselves, while maintaining good toy safety skills, allows them to feel satisfied and excited in their independence. You may even find them teaching the same toy safety tips to those fuzzy friends!

Resiliency

The truth is, no kid is perfect at everything when they start—but without opportunities to confront something new and to work through failure to find success, they won’t learn that key life skill.  When you introduce something potentially challenging, like a ride-on toy, to your child, you may be surprised at how quickly they catch on—or you may be surprised by how quickly they become frustrated and want to quit. Either scenario works to build their sense of self, but the second requires much more patience.  While you are teaching your child toy safety, make sure that you are also encouraging their knowledge with very clear directions.  Show your new driver how to use the ride on toy by demonstrating and using the language associated with the action (stop, go) and by showing your child how to use the toy using the toy safety tips above.  When you do, you’ll help them learn to stick with something through the challenges to eventually reach their reward—an amazing set of skills that helps them have fun and be prepared for some of life’s speed bumps along the way.

Find more outdoor safe playing tips at KidsHealth.org.

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