Booster training is just teaching a child to use a booster. It and booster readiness kind of go hand in hand.
Generally booster training is not an every day thing. It's for kids like your six year old who ride in a Regent full time, but maybe need to ride with a friend in a booster now and then. So before you just chuck her in someone else's car in a booster you get a booster and ride her around town in it now and then. See how she sits. Here's the booster readiness. If she sits up properly, doesn't lean, doesn't reach, and can stay awake for the entire ride and not slump, she's booster ready, even if she doesn't move into one full time. So then you can take little rides around town and get her used to it (some kids who have been harnessed for life don't move a muscle, others hate the feeling of freedom, others look like Houdini and need to be reharnessed for every trip). Then you know when she goes off with a friend she's learned how to use her booster properly. Maybe you teach her to lock the belt on herself for a little added reminder. But she knows what's expected of her in her booster. Otherwise if you send her off she may freak out if she doesn't like the feeling, she may follow what the others kids in the other car do and lean all around and look behind her, or she may not be ready in any way under any conditions, to sit in a booster.
There isn't really a checklist. Most of us kind of eyeball it, as it were. Do they sit properly, not lean, not sleep, and stay that way for the entire ride? If so then they're probably ok to start booster training if they're over five years old (and preferably 40 pounds, but there are the tiny ones who need boosters now and then, though not full time).
Wendy
