Teaching Children Fire Safety: Tips and Tricks
The rule of thumb in fire safety is that prevention is always the best medicine. Breeding responsible fire safety habits in your family household is vital and a great way to get children involved in active learning of responsibility and how to handle emergencies.
Your family might not ever fall victim to a house fire, but the lessons you teach your children will be passed on to their children, ensuring generations of happy and safe children and families. Here are Steamatic’s tips on teaching children fire safety, including how children need to handle emergencies and fires.
Plan an Escape Route
Plan escape exits in each room, and run through them with your children. This could be made in to a fun game, making them more eager to learn. Every room should ideally have at least two methods of exit. Fire does not discriminate, and if your only exit is engulfed in flames, what will you do? If you find that many of the rooms in your home do not have two exits, than it may be time time to evaluate your living space and establish a plan for action.
Working Windows are Vital!
Make sure all windows in the home are easy to open, do not have any difficult locks, and can be opened by your children. If your children are alone in a room and need to make their own escape without your help, you need to know that they are capable of opening their escape routes.
Second Floor Safety
If you have a second floor, many escape routes are likely to include windows. You will need to place escape ladders at these windows. Run through using them with your children, as this could be a potentially dangerous task itself. Remind children that they should never be used outside of a real fire emergency, and they are not toys.
“Feel” Your Exits!
There is no guarantee that when a fire happens, there will be light there to guide you to your designated exists. If a fire is particularly rampant, then light would not make a difference, as the smoke might make it impossible to keep your eyes open. In preparation for this, make your children practice how to escape a room by feeling their surroundings. You can turn this into a fun game for them, simply put a blindfold on them and offering a prize if they can escape the room. This is a great option for those who work in daycare or child care service, as it can be turned into a group learning activity.
Learning Through Music
Music has always been a great way to teach children lessons that they might otherwise find boring or unnecessary. Searching the web for fire safety related songs is easy and the results are endless. This is particularly useful for younger kids and young learners.
Give Children a Smoke Detector 101
Show and inform your child on the basics of your fire and smoke detector. While adults naturally link the distinct sound of a fire alarm to danger, children do not. They need to be taught that this sound means something, and it means that there might be danger. Make sure to avoid having the batteries deplete fully. If your child constantly hears the sound of the low battery ringing, they might subconsciously associate it with a false alarm.
