Home Fire Safety for Parents with Young Children
If you have toddlers at home, it is very important to teach them about fires as soon as they can understand. Sadly, children five-years-old and younger are twice as likely to die in a fire. You need to take your little precious ones to the local fire department and introduce them to firefighters fully dressed in the clothing they would wear to put out a fire. We all know we would stay in a burning house until death in order to save our children. What if you are injured in a fire, and cannot get back into your house to save your child? In the dark, a child will be scared and want to hide to get away. Many firefighters find bodies in closets or under beds of children who were hiding from the fire and smoke. Make sure you tell your children they cannot hide from a fire but escape. This child will not want to come out to a strange voice or a person who looks like a monster. It will save your child’s life if he/she knows what a firefighter is.
Many fires started at home are from preschoolers are from playing with matches or lighters. Children need to be taught what damage can be done by playing with these objects and stress they are for adults only. Parents make sure, especially at night, that these things are put away to where the kids cannot get them. My children will get up in the middle of the night and get into the things and sometimes I will not hear them. I try to make sure every night that I put everything up that will cause harm to them, were parents, not perfect.
Teach your children what a smoke detector is and what to do if they hear it. Make sure all the windows are easily accessible and show the child how to open the window, but beware this could backfire. Make sure the child is old enough to know not to open the window unless there is a problem. Show them how to cover their body with a blanket to help keep from getting burned, of course stop, drop, and roll. Make a fire escape plan and act it out often so that everyone in your house knows what to do in case of a fire. Have your toddler act out what should be done if the child wakes up with a room full of smoke. Make sure the child knows that fire burns and make sure they are taught more than one way out of the house. Teach them to crawl under the smoke as low as they can. Make sure, even though this may hurt the child that they cannot go back for favorite toys or pets. This will hurt the child but it is important, so they will not try to go back in once they are out.
Fire safety is not the only thing young children need to be aware of. Police officers are also an important part of the safety of our children. We have stressed to our children strangers are bad news. When I was younger, I took the wrong bus home from school and got off the bus miles away from where I lived. I walked along a country road for hours not knowing how to get home. This one lady who was delivering news papers kept stopping and asking me if I needed help, but because I was not suppose to talk to strangers I would tell her no. I walked until it was almost dark and I finally got into the car with her and she took me to where my parents had recently moved. You cannot do that anymore. So what happens if they get lost? Whom will they turn too? When I was a child, we could roam the stores without our parents without any fears. Now day’s kids are snatched out of the buggies when unsuspecting parents turn their backs for a few seconds. Introduce your children to police officers, security guards, any one with a name tag that could help them in the case they get lost. Tell them they should never leave the store without finding you. Make a plan that if they do get lost to go to a certain spot in the store to wait for you. Practice this several times. I have small children and I use the controversial child leash when we go anywhere that requires a lot of walking or a large crowd. I have gotten many comments both good and bad, but at least I know I have a hold of my child.
There are a lot of things we as parents overlook about safety. It is important to educate yourself and your family on things that could happen. Each and every family that has been through a tragedy feels the same way we all do, they did not think it could happen to them. Remember we are Parents not perfect.
