[blparent] Your thoughts on this?

[Robert Shelton]

I don't know about the reenactment with graphic descriptions, but I do know
that several volunteer fire companies visit schools to do safety
presentations.  One really important thing that they do is to show a
firefighter in various stages of donning their equipment.  The concern is
that if a child sees a firefighter fully decked out in their gear, they may
not recognize them as a human being and could be frightened into hiding.
Obviously, someone could get carried away and unnecessarily frighten the
children, but making sure they know what to do to save themselves or help
the firefighter save them seems critical.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Jo Elizabeth Pinto [mailto:jopinto at msn.com] 
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 11:36 PM
To: NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: [blparent] Your thoughts on this?

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.