Proper Carpool Etiquette for Parents

I carpool my kids’ friends around town almost every day. I’m always picking somebody up from soccer practice or singing lessons. I’m telling y’ all—the madness never ends. My kids and their friends know there’s no funny business allowed in my vehicle. The minute they get in my ride, they know the roughhousing is over. Yet, it wasn’t until I started driving other people’s children around that I realized I must follow certain rules myself. This is a handy guide on proper carpool etiquette for parents. After all, no one wants any mishaps when they’re watching over someone’s child.

Clean Your Car

The first rule of proper car etiquette is to ensure that your vehicle is spotless. No parent wants their child driving around in a messy automobile. Unless you want people to get the wrong impression of you, please, clean your car’s interior like a pro. Scrub down every hard surface and vacuum the floors before each pickup. Also, be sure that every child that gets into your car cleans their shoes off beforehand. I can’t tell you how many times my vehicle looked like a tornado ran through it after I picked up my daughter’s soccer team. Ensure that your car is nice and tidy before you offer to give anyone a ride.

Drive Carefully

I was a speed demon back in the day. Before I had kids, I’d hit the snooze button on my alarm and then speed to work. Now that I’m a mom, my speeding days are long behind me. This is especially true when I’m driving other people’s children around. Driving carefully is essential to proper carpool etiquette. The last thing I want is to get into an accident with my kid’s friends in the vehicle. So, I make sure everyone is buckled in before I put my foot on the gas. Also, I slow down at yellow lights instead of speeding up. I’d rather be late to practice than end up in a terrible accident. I also never jam people into my ride, either. Obviously, I want to make sure every kid has a ride home. However, I also need to make safety the top priority. It’s nearly impossible to drive when your car is full of your daughter’s entire dance team.

Pick Appropriate Music

I have to remember that not everyone has the same taste in music as me; not everyone loves jamming out to throwbacks from the 2000s. I’m especially mindful of what I put on the radio when I’m carpooling. It’d be awful if one of my kid’s companions heard an inappropriate song while they were in my car. I try to screen everything I can before any child gets in my car. The easiest way to do this is to create a kid-friendly playlist. I play this soundtrack every time I’m carpooling because I know it’ll keep parents happy. Please, don’t let kids try to fool you either. One of my daughter’s friends convinced me she was allowed to listen to explicit rap. After a long phone call with her mom, I realized this wasn’t the case.