Remove gate

About this visual support

Safety gates are built to resist a child´s first attempts. That means the grip needs force in a specific direction: often a simultaneous press and lift, or a lever that slides sideways while the gate is held in place. For a child with developing fine motor skills, combining those movements is not always obvious.

Visual support shows the motion in clear steps: grasp, press, lift, step through, set back in place. Just as important is what the pictures do not invite. A child used to opening one gate at home may generalise wrongly to a gate at grandma´s or at preschool. Talking about which gates the child may open alone, and which wait for an adult, is part of the routine.

One concrete tip: practise the gate together in a calm moment, not when someone is in a rush to get past. It then becomes a motor skill rather than a power struggle. In Routined you can add a rule card next to the steps so the child sees that the balcony gate is never opened without an adult, while the kitchen gate is fine.