Child pedestrian safety: parental supervision, modeling behaviors, and beliefs about child pedestrian competence.

Pedestrian injuries are a significant health risk to children, particularly those 5-9 years of age. Surprisingly, few studies have explored parent-related factors that may moderate this risk. The present study used naturalistic observations of parent-child pairs crossing at uncontrolled intersections and a short interview to examine parental supervision of children during crossings, modeling of safe-crossing behaviors, beliefs about how children come to cross streets safely, and whether child attributes (age, sex) relate to parental practices and beliefs. Results revealed that parents more closely supervised younger than older children, they modeled safer crossing practices for sons more than daughters, particularly younger sons, and although over half the sample believed children need to be explicitly taught how to cross safely, few actually provided any instruction when crossing with their children. Providing parents both with guidelines for how to accurately appraise their child's readiness for crossing independently and with information about best practices for teaching children how to cross safely may facilitate parents' implementing these practices, particularly if this is coupled with public advocacy highlighting the important role they could play to reduce the risk of child pedestrian injury.