Parking Pal magnets to keep kids safe

Filed under: Places To Go, Siblings, Health & Safety: Babies

When I am out and about, I usually only have one child to keep track of. Loading up the car after a shopping trip is pretty simple - Ellie gets in first, followed by everything else. But for those with several little ones to corral, keeping one kid safe from traffic while you attend to another can be a challenge.

Two mothers in Michigan have come up with a creative way to entice kids to stick close to the car and out of harm's way. It's a magnet shaped like a hand that you place on the side of your car. While you are strapping in the baby or otherwise distracted, the other kids are concentrating on placing their own little hands on the magnet hand. As long as they are touching the magnet, they can't move away from you.

Parking Pal magnets were born out of Denise Whitney's struggles keeping her own children safe. ''I thought there's got to be something better, something easier,'' she said. She and her mother, Dottie Daenzer, came up with this solution and now sell the magnets locally in Bay City as well as online.

While this wouldn't be a fail-safe way of keeping your kid from running out into traffic, it does give an easily distracted toddler a task to focus on and a more explicit instruction to follow than "don't move." Plus, Whitney says kids like it. ''The kids are kind of just drawn to putting their hand in the middle (of the magnet),'' she said.

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AdviceMama Says:
Start by teaching him that it is safe to do so.