When accompanying children on roads - ahead, beside or behind? When accompanying children (in my case roughly in the 5 to 9 range) on a moderately busy (by rural standards) road on our commute to their school I'm sometimes ahead, sometimes beside (at least the smaller one) and sometimes behind.

What is best practice?

Bearing in mind:


ahead of them I can control their speed and demonstrate to them safe cycling
beside is good, but this only takes care of one child (I'm cycling with two)
behind them I can see what's going on


The third option is what I tend to favour most.
For safety reasons I prefer to be behind them. That way I can position myself on the road slightly further out then they are. This forces any overtaking vehicles to negotiate past me first and makes them provide a little more breathing space for my child in front. It certainly seems to prevent them trying to squeeze past.