Child locks explained: What do I need to know about child locks when looking at cars for my family?

We know that when it comes to travelling with your kids, nothing is more important than safety. So, understanding car door child locks, where they’re located and how to use them is important when transporting our kids around.

Your children are sitting there with nothing to do, so it’s understandable that any handles or buttons within reach are irresistible to them! They are going to press and pull anything they can; that’s just what kids do when they’re exploring the world around them.

We can’t have eyes in the back of our heads while we’re driving, and all parents know that saying ‘don’t touch that’ is like a red rag to a bull and doesn’t work 99 per cent of the time!

The thought of your child opening the rear door of the car while you’re driving 100km/h on the highway, or while parked and stepping out into the path of traffic, is terrifying. That’s why all cars have child locks for the rear doors. They keep our kids safe and allow us to concentrate on driving rather than worrying about their safety.

Child locks do come in different forms and in different locations depending on the car, so this guide should help you find them and understand how they operate on various types of vehicle, whether it’s your own car, a courtesy car while yours is being serviced or repaired, or one you rented on holiday.

If in doubt, always check the owner’s manual for the specific make and model of vehicle you’re using.

These are some of the most common child locks that I have found in the hundreds of cars I have tested with my family over the last 10 years as a mum of two, family car journalist and founder of BabyDrive.com.au.

The mechanical key lock is what cars had when I was a kid in the ’80s. Back when you opened and locked a car with an actual key. Parents could quickly insert the car key into the slot and turn the dial, conveniently located in a part of the rear door that is not accessible when it is closed, and know it couldn’t be opened from the inside.

These mechanical locks are less convenient to use now because the majority of modern cars have some form of keyless entry system or a remote fob with a concealed emergency key.

Nowadays, using a mechanical key-operated child lock requires pre-thinking and preparation, which can be difficult among the chaos of kids and on occasions like play dates or holidays when you have extra children in your car and want to quickly activate another child lock, for example.

These locks do allow you to lock each rear door individually, though, so if you have children of different ages in the car, the side where your teenager sits, for example, doesn’t need to have the child lock on if you trust them not to fiddle with the door.

The mechanical switch lock might be my preference when it comes to physical child locks!

Located in a similar area of the rear doors as the mechanical key-operated child lock, the switch design is more easily moved between the lock and unlock positions with your finger.

So, there is no need for a key, and you can easily do it when giving an extra child a lift.

Using buttons positioned in the driver’s door control panel, remote individual child locks are simple to use.

The convenient location of the buttons makes it easy to put the child locks on while driving when needed, giving you peace of mind that rear passengers can’t open the rear doors, especially if you realise you have forgotten to activate the mechanical door lock.

Provided you’re sure that a child isn’t going to fling their door into the path of a cyclist or ding a nearby vehicle, you simply press the child lock button when you reach your destination and the rear passengers can easily open their door to exit the car.

This type of child lock is great for rideshare, Uber or taxi drivers to pop a child lock on when they are carrying a child in the back seats.

See our guide to everything you need to know about riding in taxis and rideshares with kids.

Sometimes the remote child lock is a single button that applies the child locks to both rear doors at once rather than individually.

This is great for peace of mind that all passengers in the back are safely locked in, but you can get a grumpy teen if they try to get out of the car when you reach your destination and you haven’t pressed the button yet to unlock the rear doors!

Rear door and window child lock buttons lock both at the same time so fiddly-fingered rear passengers cannot operate either, which can be helpful as kids love playing with the buttons that put the windows up and down.

Some cars, often electric ones, have the child lock control in the media screen rather than a physical button.

Once you’ve figured out where the button or menu item is (thankfully it is fairly easy to do so most of the time), you can turn the child lock on and off for the rear doors individually and lock the windows too.

Still, I’d prefer a real, easy-to-reach button in the door rather than having to find it using a touch screen.

Safe exit assist is great for families when you are parked, and the kids go to open a rear door while a vehicle is approaching from behind. Some systems can sense bicycles and skateboards too.

If it senses another road user approaching, the car automatically keeps the door locked (even if the child locks are turned off) and sounds an alarm or displays a warning message in the driver’s display screen.

If you’re looking for more safety features for your next family car, see our top 10 safety features for family cars here.

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