[blparent] Your thoughts on this?

[Jo Elizabeth Pinto]

on this?
My four-year-old came home from school on Friday, and when she played with her dollhouse, she imagined that the door was on fire while everybody was in bed. Then she started having the Dora family characters jump out the second and third story windows. I questioned her a bit, and she said that some officers (I call them that because she couldn't tell me for sure if they were firefighters or policemen, since they had no big red truck, but I'm guessing they were firefighters) brought a dollhouse to school and talked about what to do if there was a fire in the night. She swears they acted out a scene where the mommy doll and the little girl doll jumped out the windows. Now I remember fire safety from when I was a kid. Stop, drop, and roll, get out of your house and have a meeting place for your family, call 911 and all, but I don't recall anything as drastic as an enactment by firefighters with a real dollhouse and a roleplay of dolls jumping out of a flaming home. Do any of you have experiences with this; is it typical for young kids to be educated this way nowadays? Does this seem a little drastic to all of you, or am I just being protective of my little girl's innocence? I know she has to be ready for the world and its dangers, but she doesn't need to have fears put in her mind before she hits the ripe old age of five, either. It seems a bit much, coming on the heels of the school shooting drills.


Jo Elizabeth

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.