How to get my step children to wear their helmets?

Recently on my bike ride home from work, I fell off my bike and hit my head on the street. I wasn’t wearing a helmet and was knocked out for a minute. I was taken to the hospital and got a severe concussion. After that accident, I’ve been trying to get my step daughters who are 18, 17, 15, 10, and 6 to wear helmets but they won’t listen. They never have worn helmets before and say things like “mom doesn’t make us wear helmets. I don’t need them.” They are all avid bike riders and I don’t want them to get hurt. I keep scolding them and reminding them to wear a helmet but they take it off when they are out of sight. At one point I didn’t let them ride unless they wore a helmet so they rollerbladed instead. I don’t make them wear a helmet when rollerblading, just wrist and knee pads for the younger two. The others can rollerblade well enough where they don’t need pads. I’ve never worn a helmet and hate wearing it but it’s a positive thing when riding a bike I need to take care of myself and be safe. Any tips on how I can make them wear helmets?

What is it with all the helmet questions lately?
Check with your local police and fire station about local laws which may require helmets to be worn.
If they are your step kids, why isn’t their dad (and/or their mom) handling this?
It’s not your job to scold anyone.

This question has been asked before on Mamapedia, almost verbatim. Same thing with a prior concussion. You can save yourself a lot of time if you just use the Search feature to look, and you’ll get tons of advice.

You know the answer to this: pediatricians ask about helmets and seatbelts at every annual checkup. Every one. Your police department can inform you of the laws in your area, and your fire department paramedics would be happy to discuss the emergency calls on this.

You are a stepmother? You’re not the boss, you don’t make the rules. These children have parents. Stay out of it. And “scolding” kids who are 18, 17 and 15 is highly ineffective. You and their father might enroll in some parenting classes to get some great tips on how to communicate with kids, especially teens.

Unfortunately, it is not your job to help them wear helmets. They have parents.

You can apologize for never helping them learn how important helmets are. I hope that now you are wearing a helmet, to set a good example.

You can also let them know that you love them, and hope to see them decide to take better care of themselves, but you recognize that your scolding is not helping. They all should be wearing helmets whether bike riding or roller blading, but again, this is not your job.

I hope you have recovered from your bicycling accident. I would think the fact you were in the hospital with a severe concussion would be enough to encourage them/scare them to wear a helmet, or your husband can use your incident as an example as to why you will ALL follow better safety rules, to prevent something like this from happening again. He should also speak to their mother about this so they both are united, on the same page, and firm about wearing helmets to prevent a tragedy. If they refuse or take them off, then he should tell them they will no longer ride their bikes, and their mother should do the same. A car striking a bicyclist can send them flying several feet in the air, with their head hitting pavement. A helmet can prevent brain damage or death from such impact. It probably can even assist with prevention of paralysis, but I’m not 100% sure on that.

Tell them that if they want to go bikeriding they have to wear one.

I’d tell them, no helmets? No bike riding on my watch. The bikes would be locked up and only dad would have the key.

Same way you get them to go to school, brush teeth, eat vegetables.

If you don’t wear helmet, you don’t bike.

It really is that easy.