Carpool is a fact of life for parents of school age children in our community.  For some families, carpools cement friendships and provide important support.  For others, car pools are yet another source of aggravation.  We thought it would be helpful to provide tips from seasoned parents and from school personnel to help make car pool a positive force in a family’s life.

Follow Your own Family’s Style

Car pooling is not for everyone, and there is no obligation to participate in one.  Joining a car pool precludes walking with one’s children or spending quality time with them.  For children with social challenges, car pool may be too difficult to manage on top of  the other challenges of school.  Some families find that morning car pool is too much of a hassle and opt to do the drive themselves.

 

Factors to Consider in Setting Up a Carpool

Finding a carpool usually means networking: informing neighbors, friends, and the parents of one’s children’s classmates that one is looking for partners.  The factors listed below may be helpful to raise awareness of where conflicts may occur.

Geography

This is probably the most important factor in car pooling.  Pickup and drop off are immensely easier when children are within very close walking distance.  For example, when the car poolers are neighbors, a child may stay at the driver’s house until his/her parent returns from another carpool.  When neighbors are not available for car pooling, one should take into account traffic patterns.  Some streets are much more difficult to cross between 8:30 and 9:00 am than others.  This may add more stress to the weekday morning routine.

Size

Larger carpools are more efficient, enabling participants to make fewer drives.  However, they are more complicated, since there are more variables.  Moreover, some drivers might find it challenging to cope with a mini-van or fifteen seater full of lively children.  Shy, small, or timid children may feel safer in a smaller car with fewer children.

Attitudes and Standards

Carpools are more harmonious when all members share the same safety standards.  Parents avoid grief if they know in advance that everyone feels the same about seat belts, booster seats, under 12’s in the front seat, and driving style.  (Note: The authors are NOT condoning illegal driving practices)  In the area of promptness, too, people have different standards.  Some parents consider it crucial to be on time; others are more relaxed by nature and will resent being “bullied” into promptitude.

The underlying attitude towards carpool and child rearing also matters.  For some parents, the parents’ convenience comes first and the children have to adapt.  For example, such parents have the children meet them a block away from school, so as to avoid the time consuming carpool line.  For other parents, the convenience and comfort of the children come first.  It is a good idea to know where potential car pool partners stand on this spectrum and avoid surprises.

The afternoon driver may find it convenient to arrive late, toward the end of the car pool time, when the lines are much shorter.  It is appropriate to discuss this first with the other car pool members, since the other parents may resent their children being brought home late in order to suit the driver’s convenience.

Managing the Relationships

It is best, for the long term stability of the carpool, to maintain an attitude of flexibility about doing favors and reciprocating favors.  Carpool members will need time off because of births, illness, work situations, and the like.  A strict tit-for-tat attitude may lead to ill feeling.  On the other hand, car pools may fall apart if members feel “used”.

Promptness is often a sore point in car pool relationships.  Parents and children resent it when the children are regularly late for school.  For younger children, arriving late can disrupt the rest of their day.  Older boys miss the beginning of Minyan.  Having to stop at the office to get a late pass may be embarrassing.

Lateness is also resented at dismissal.  Children are tired and want to go home.  Teachers or principals who take care of dismissal do not appreciate having to wait for late comers.  If something unusual comes up, it is considerate to either have a friend do the carpool or contact the school so that they know you will be delayed.

Car pool members should be informed about health issues of the children they will drive, since they may manifest themselves, especially during the dismissal run after the long school day.  This includes allergies, diabetes, and behavior challenges.

It may be helpful if drivers spend some time in the back of their vehicle to experience its condition for themselves.  Garbage, smells, poor climate control: these all may affect the behavior of the children who sit there during car pool.

Misbehavior

When children misbehave in the car, it is best for the driver to try to handle this him/herself through humor or redirection.  If the behavior continues to deteriorate, it may be appropriate to speak to the parents of the offender(s).  When parents learn only at the end of the year about their offspring’s misbehavior, they resent the delay.  Their child has been deprived of the benefit of having his/her parents help him/her learn to behave.  Moreover, the information might be needed to fill in a picture about the child’s emotional challenges.

At the School 

At every school, car pool involves a line of cars waiting to get close to the building to drop off or to collect the kids.  There are usually one or more monitors, whose role is to direct traffic, identify which children are to be picked up, make sure the children leave the car safely, and enforce rules.  It is crucial for the smooth operating of the carpool process that everyone follow the rules and obey the directions of the monitors.  View car pool as a gigantic machine in which every driver and every child is a cog.  When all the cogs function appropriately, the machine operates safely, effectively, and quickly.  When drivers maneuver for their own advantage, they “gum up the works,” and possibly compromise the safety of the children.

Some Rules for the Carpool Lane

• Don’t drive distracted; don’t talk on the cell phone.  There is usually a turn on the car pool line.  When drivers are distracted, they zig zag or maneuver the wrong way.  This may inconvenience other drivers and even present safety hazards.  Drivers need to be alert for the unexpected.  While most cars load from the side door, there are station wagons which load from the back.  The driver of the car behind such a vehicle needs to be aware that children will enter or exit the vehicle between their two cars.

• Pay attention.  Drivers engrossed in their schmoozing or in their Tehillim are more likely to not realize when their car is full or that someone is missing.  This leads to unnecessary delays.

• Don’t call out to children.  Part of the task of car pool monitor is to make sure that kids do not wander off on their own into the traffic lane.  When parents call out to their children, the children are likely to get confused and run into traffic.

• Avoid unnecessary maneuvers near the car pool lanes, such as K turns.  Backing up may also complicate matters.  Drive slowly while approaching the school, 15MPH maximum.  Obey the traffic directors.

• Discharge/pickup children only when the car is in the designated lane.  Children should enter the car only from the passenger side next to the sidewalk.  When children enter/exit the car on the driver side, they are exposed to traffic from cars in the “driving” lane.  It is also dangerous for children to return to the car (to get something) once they have exited, since the car may have moved by then and reentering may involve crossing into traffic.

• Inform the alternate driver.  On holidays, schedules change and the other spouse, typically the husband, may pick up the children from school.  This may lead to chaos as this driver does not know whom to pick up.

• If possible, avoid bringing the 15-seater van to carpool.  It is clumsy to maneuver and takes up extra parking space.  Backing up these vehicles can be dangerous.

 

Tips for Smooth Carpooling

If a parent needs to pull a child out of school early, he/she should inform the afternoon carpool.  A message left with the office may not reach the carpool monitors until the carpool has been waiting fifteen minutes.

Schedule car pool on a day when there is help in the house.  This way, young children do not need to be taken along and there is someone home when another child’s car pool arrives.  In addition, parents who might be late to meet their child may have that child dropped off last.

Bring the children’s favorite music or story recording along.  Make sure that the recording is appropriate for all car pool members; families have different standards.  (Drivers who listen to the radio may wish to consult with the other parents about their listening policies.)  Some drivers hand out snacks to encourage the children to behave.  This should be discussed in advance with the other parents, since they will be under pressure to do the same.  While some parents might prefer to avoid having their children snack during carpool, this may be the only way to handle the situation if there is a particularly challenging child in the car pool.

Avoid extra stops on the way back from school.  Some children need very badly to return home as soon as possible, for a variety of reasons, i.e. a doctor’s appointment.  If an extra stop is needed, it is considerate to clear it first with the other parents.

Seating arrangements may cause tension.  Certain seats, such as the ones next to the window or closer to the front may be considered more desirable.  Some children may prefer to not to sit next to each other or next to a baby.  One solution is to create a written rotation system to determine who sits where and when.  It may lead to more of a feeling of fairness if all families in the car pool adopt a similar rotation system.

If the car pool pickup involves the children meeting the car away the school (assuming that the school permits this arrangement), contingency plans are needed in case of rain, snow, or ice on the ground.  Everyone also needs to agree on the definition of rain—is it a flooding downpour, a heavy drizzle, or something in between.  Otherwise, some children will wait at the school to be picked up and others will walk to the rendezvous spot.

Instituting a fixed waiting time for pickup may reduce tension and lateness.  Before the school year begins, car pool members may determine that each driver will wait a pre-specified number of minutes before driving off without the child.  By instituting such a rule before the school year begins, car pool members avoid making late children feel singled out.

Car pools for older children may be treated more like a bus service.  If the members live near each other, the children may be instructed to be at the driver’s house by a specific time.  If the child is late, the child has “missed the bus” and is responsible for finding an alternative method to school.

Avoid getting ticketed.  Police often cruise around at carpool time watching for violators.  Tickets are typically issued for traffic violations (stop signs, speeding, signaling), cell phone usage, and car seat/seat belt infractions.  Apart from making them late for school, having their car pulled over by the police may be a nasty experience for the children, and this may upset their whole day.

To Tell the Children

The driver of the car is the boss.  Children must understand that they have to conform to the driver’s safety standards even if they are stricter than those in their own family.  For example, many parents do not enforce car seat rules after pre-school, even though legally, booster seats are required until age 8.  Parents should reinforce the importance of obedience to the other car pool drivers in areas of behavior, too.

Pay attention to the carpool announcer.  It is frustrating for those already in the car and for the carpools awaiting their turn when a child doesn’t show up.  Designating a fellow car pooler to fetch an incurably absent-minded child may alleviate this problem.  The designee should know to return in a set time in case the absent-minded child appears on his/her own.

It is more pleasant for the driver when the children are taught to be courteous: to say thank you, have a good day, and so forth.  Children should ask whether or not they need to shut the door.  When children are used to a car that closes the doors automatically, they never acquire the habit of shutting the door.  This leads to the car pool driver having to get out of the car in order to close the door after the children have run off to school.

Car Pool Time as an Opportunity

Conveying one’s children to and from school is a daily challenge for parents.  It may be helpful to view this experience as a chinuch opportunity rather than merely as a necessity.  There are many rules involved in driving to and from school: traffic laws and school rules.  Children are aware of these rules.  They also notice how we comply.  We may inculcate derech eretz, consideration for others, cooperation, and respect for the law by demonstrating how we value these qualities by putting them into practice, day after day, throughout the school year.