Hard headed family

Lenae

Active member
Hi, I'm new here, I posted once before, a question about a seat I was given. Anyways, I have a new question.

My son is going to be a year old soon, and my family has been giving me a hard time about keeping him rear facing, which doesn't really bother me. What does bother me is my sister has three children, a 5 year old who is very small for his age, only around 38 pounds, and I'm not sure how tall he is precisely, but he's at least a head shorter than the kids in his kindergarten class. A just turned 2 year old niece, who is 33 1/2" and weighs 26 pounds. A nephew who is the largest of her kids, he will be 1 on November 1st, he is 30" and weighs around 24 pounds.

My oldest nephew has a belt posistioning booster seat, that my sister rarely makes him sit in, she just puts him in the lap only belt in her Tahoe. My niece sits forward facing as does my youngest nephew (who isn't even a year old yet!).

I worry about all three, my oldest nephew and niece being so teeny tiny and in the seats they should be in, and my youngest nephew being forward facing before he is a year old. I try to explain to my sister that she's putting her children at risk, but she just calls me Captain Safety and says it's easier for her to have the kids facing forward.

I can easily (and gladly) ignore my family when they give me a hard time about my son being rear facing after a year, but how do I convince the rest of my family (it's not just my sister) that she's putting her kids in danger?

Sorry if I rambled too much, I'm just trying to explain the situation as best as I can. My entire family, my parents, my sister and her husband and their kids, my brother and his wife and their son-on-the-way, all live in the same town I do, so they all kind of feed off one another and their misconceptions about safety.

I'm trying to help my sister and her children, it snows here a lot in the winter, and accidents are common. We actually had a rollover accident in the family last year because of snow, but the adults and child involved were all thankfully buckled and harnessed correctly.

Back to the point, how can I convince my family that they are putting these children at serious risk, and has anyone else every dealt with a situation like this?
 
ADS

MomToEliEm

Moderator
It is difficult to deal with, especially if it is family.

Throwing lots of information at them concerning extended rearfacing or extended harnessing isn't always the best way to get them to understand. If you bombard them with info, they will probably just reject all of it and assume you are a crazy carseat obsessed person who doesn't know the real world.

If you give them little bits of data spoonfed to them over time, they are more likely to believe you and follow your advice.

If there is a grandmother or mother who is influential in the family? It might be best to start with her and maybe show her the youtube video on the importance of rearfacing as long as possible (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psmUWg7QrC8). Use the video as talking point to help her understand why you want to stay rearfacing for a while. If she starts understanding the reasons why, she may be more likely to tell the rest of her family about her newly learned info.

After you get passed that one bit of data, you can work on keeping kids harnessed till 4. Then after some time, you can start telling them about staying harnessed to 5 or 6.

When discussing the issues, make sure to address positive things that you see the family doing and then sandwich the negative things in between those positives. They are more likely to listen to you if they hear you praising them.
 

snowbird25ca

Moderator - CPST Instructor
What I learned from my BIL & SIL is that sometimes people do what they want to do regardless or that they pick and choose what advice to take based on what's convenient for them. In the case of them, I sent them an email after having checked their seat (and turned it back rf'ing for my 7mo old nephew who'd been riding ff'ing in an untethered seat at 22lbs. :eek:) In the email I said first off that I was sending them the links because I loved my nephew and didn't want to see him hurt. I told them that I wouldn't mention it to them again because I didn't want to pressure them, and then shared the youtube video & a link showing the spinal development along with some very basic information that I wrote for them.

I've kept my word, I haven't mentioned it to them since. Not that it matters, because my nephew hit 30lbs before his 1st b-day and at the time no seat had a rf'ing limit above 30lbs, so he's been ff'ing since then. I'm not sure how long they left the seat rf'ing after I checked it though, since they move it between vehicles pretty regularly. I did show them how to do it ff'ing as well so at least he should be in there properly now... when it comes down to it though - they're not of the same mindset of safety before injury. They live in the "never going to happen to me" world or that they drive low speeds etc. They've let my nephew sit in the front around their acreage and help shift. He's not even 2 yet. :eek:

Anyways, my whole point is that you can't save them all. You can lead by example, and provide the starting point of information. In the end you need to remember that they're family, and that pushing is likely to do nothing but drive them away & still not result in the correct use. So I guess it's up to you where you want to go from the point of having provided the basics of info.

Do you have a tech in your area? Would it be possible to get together with this tech, but do it as a family thing? Kind of in the way, of "hey, I was looking for someone to check my seats were ok and this person was able to come out. I thought maybe you'd like to have a chance to ask questions too" or something like that. Sometimes 3rd parties can give identical info with a different effect.

Hugs and best of luck to you. I understand the difficulty all too well... I'm sure my nephew will hit 40lbs and be in the 3in1 seat as a booster before ds even hits 30lbs. At his current rate of growth, it'll happen sometime around his 2nd birthday. It's hard to watch, but there's only so much I can do. :(
 

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