Advice needed with terrified 5 year old, please?

[filski666]

Hi, I don't know if anyone has any helpful advice they can share with me?

My daughter's primary school has been filling her head with horror stories of fatal house fires for some reason (she is only 5 years old FFS!). Now she is absolutely terrified about it!
She is fine all day when we are around, but when we try and leave her alone in bed she gets scared - literally shaking with fear!

I have sat down with her and explained how the smoke detector will wake us up with plenty of time to get out of the house, how no one smokes so there is no chance of a fire starting that way, that all the electrics are in good order and I turn most off at night, I have told her that the fire brigade are only down the road and will be here in minutes, I have taught her how to phone 999 and ask for the Fire Brigade. But she is still terrified and so I have to stay with her all night.

I am going to have words with the school about this, can't see why it was necessary to fill a little kid's head with such thoughts and fears, but I can't think what else to do to reassure her that it is highly unlikely that the house will catch fire, and even if it did, we have smoke detectors and will be able to get out ok.

Considering starting a little controlled smokey fire to show her how early the smoke detector goes off, maybe go to the local Fire Station to talk to the firemen, if they can help reassure her?

anyone been through anything similar? all suggestions appreciated!

Cheers

Phil

Should be in Health Matters? If so please move it mods, ta

[joebongo]

filski666 said:

Hi, I don't know if anyone has any helpful advice they can share with me?

My daughter's primary school has been filling her head with horror stories of fatal house fires for some reason (she is only 5 years old FFS!). Now she is absolutely terrified about it!
She is fine all day when we are around, but when we try and leave her alone in bed she gets scared - literally shaking with fear!

I have sat down with her and explained how the smoke detector will wake us up with plenty of time to get out of the house, how no one smokes so there is no chance of a fire starting that way, that all the electrics are in good order and I turn most off at night, I have told her that the fire brigade are only down the road and will be here in minutes, I have taught her how to phone 999 and ask for the Fire Brigade. But she is still terrified and so I have to stay with her all night.

I am going to have words with the school about this, can't see why it was necessary to fill a little kid's head with such thoughts and fears, but I can't think what else to do to reassure her that it is highly unlikely that the house will catch fire, and even if it did, we have smoke detectors and will be able to get out ok.

Considering starting a little controlled smokey fire to show her how early the smoke detector goes off, maybe go to the local Fire Station to talk to the firemen, if they can help reassure her?

anyone been through anything similar? all suggestions appreciated!

Cheers

Phil

Should be in Health Matters? If so please move it mods, ta

I would go through root cause analysis and take each example in turn and show how it's not applicable to your house.

[eybic]

It's a tricky situation. I remember getting similar "scare" stories when I was at primary school but the point they were making is that if you have a working smoke alarm all should be ok. Maybe talk to the school to see what line they take on their "education" regarding house fires.

Could be a good idea chatting to your local fire station too.

[filski666]

joebongo said:

I would go through root cause analysis and take each example in turn and show how it's not applicable to your house.

pretty much have done, went through the main causes of house fires, and how they wouldn't happen.

things like smoking, candles, electrical faults, spontanious human combustion , etc etc.

I will go through it with her again tonight before she goes to bed, rather than when she is wide eyed, shaking and her voice cracking with the fear.

I went through how we would get out the house if there was a fire downstairs, how we would get out if there was a fire upstairs. I told her if there was a fire she should get on the floor and just shout and scream so we could find her - not to hide in a cupboard etc. Promised her I would absolutely come and get her, that I wouldn't sleep through the alarm (I wake up if a mosquito farts so unlikely to sleep through an alarm!) Offered to put up more alarms in the house.

[davidjpowell]

daft though it sounds Fireman Sam might not be a bad idea. It brings the fire message down to a five year old standard, something which the primary school seems to have overlooked.

If your on Sky it's on 619 most mornings....

[Ozzie Osmond]

I find these things very difficlult. On the one hand you don't want to just try to sweep it under the carpet and on the other you don't want to reinforce it by banging on and on.

Clearly you can't say "it won't happen" and are stuck with "it's very unlikely to happen". So your approach of "even if it happens you won't get hurt because (a) Smoke alarms [you can even demonstrate with a toaster and a slice of bread if appropriate], (b) Exit strategy [ladder, rope, jump]", seems to be on the button.

I spent some of my early childhood frightened of lifts because there was a new report of a lift cage falling down a mineshaft. Only really got over it when I found out more about the subject and accepted that all the lifts I was likely to ride in would be fitted with automatic brakes to stop the lift if the cable broke. Stirling Moss' recent fall down his lift-shaft did make me wince though!

[anonymous-user]

According to my Mom I was scared of something like this happening after the school talk. I just grew out of it though.

[Agoogy]

There is also the parallel thing that your child now has a way of gettinga response from you... not syure, may sound harsh, but daughter started with fears that soneone was going to climb in through her bedroom window....or that she had some weird stomach ache... we took them all seriously, talked about her window, and the fact we were around, investigated stomach pains and reasons for it...but in the end, it soon became clear she just wanted a resason to come down stairs half an hour after being put to bed...and then again...and again...
Also the news that someone who has moved into the area who is on the child offence database, caused her great anxiety... I decided to ignore the issue other than to tell her the advice already given was best....ultimatley there are no more peados now than any time before and I don't want her walking past every house wondering if there's a monster inside..
I thought if I/we appeared to be unphased it'd rub off...and it kind of has...

A fear of a house fire and the images that the school thing will have given the child will be slightly(alot?) different from what I've described, so maybe a trip to fire station/Fireman Sam would help...but perpetuating the whole deal could just cement the the thing in...

[Lefty]

Fireman sam is a good call, for all it's welsh content it's actually quite well made with regard to teaching kids about emergency response.

[Stevenj214]

Ozzie Osmond said:

(b) Exit strategy [ladder, rope, jump]",

I would definitely try this. Put together a fire prevention and escape strategy together with her (hopefully using what she learned on the talk).

[tractorguy]

davidjpowell said:

daft though it sounds Fireman Sam might not be a bad idea. It brings the fire message down to a five year old standard, something which the primary school seems to have overlooked.

If your on Sky it's on 619 most mornings....

Another +1

This helped my daughter after the primary school horror story. Been told this at five may be a bit over the top, my oldest was seven/eight when she was taught it, but it is handy for the school to teach them about it. Another thing that helped and she enjoyed was the open day our local fire station, they get shown all the equipment and the fire engines etc. The firemen were great in the way they told the kids about fire safty, they'll do it a lot better than the school.

[bexVN]

I think a call to your local fire station would be a great idea. It'll be fun and take her mind off the scary side of fire. I remember having the chance to go on a fire engine as my Dad knew someone. I loved it.

That and fireman sam and eventually she'll get better.

[Munter]

Sounds like a lot of good stuff above.

I wouldn't say setting off the smoke alarm using a small fire type thing is a good idea. However has she heard you testing it? I wouldn't think it would hurt to test it with her on a regular basis. (by test I mean push the button and realise just how loud the thing is!)

That and the "escape plan" are things we should all do anyway.

[filski666]

Thanks for all the advice, appreciate you all taking the time to answer!

Munter said:

Sounds like a lot of good stuff above.

I wouldn't say setting off the smoke alarm using a small fire type thing is a good idea. However has she heard you testing it? I wouldn't think it would hurt to test it with her on a regular basis. (by test I mean push the button and realise just how loud the thing is!)

That and the "escape plan" are things we should all do anyway.

I have always got her involved in testing the alarm, picking her up so she could press the button, I reminded her of this, but wouldn't hurt to do it again - also maybe set it off while she is upstairs so she can hear how loud it is throughout the house.

[Munter]

I'm no fire expert. But I understand you should have an alarm upstairs where people sleep as well. (From your description it sounds like you only have one downstairs).

If a phone charger/other plugged in transformer decides to catch fire in a bedroom over night, the smoke alarm downstairs will kick in some time after you've filled the top floor of the house with smoke.

[Stevenj214]

filski666 said:

I have always got her involved in testing the alarm, picking her up so she could press the button, I reminded her of this, but wouldn't hurt to do it again - also maybe set it off while she is upstairs so she can hear how loud it is throughout the house.

Make sure you tell her you're doing it. Don't do it whilst she's in bed asleep...

[jhfozzy]

Stevenj214 said:

filski666 said:

I have always got her involved in testing the alarm, picking her up so she could press the button, I reminded her of this, but wouldn't hurt to do it again - also maybe set it off while she is upstairs so she can hear how loud it is throughout the house.

Make sure you tell her you're doing it. Don't do it whilst she's in bed asleep...

[Mr Will]

Munter said:

I'm no fire expert. But I understand you should have an alarm upstairs where people sleep as well. (From your description it sounds like you only have one downstairs).

If a phone charger/other plugged in transformer decides to catch fire in a bedroom over night, the smoke alarm downstairs will kick in some time after you've filled the top floor of the house with smoke.

If you don't have one upstairs and are going to fit one, it could be worth splashing out on an interlinked system. One downstairs, one in her room and one in yours. It's overkill, but she will probably find it comforting to know that if "her" alarm goes off, yours will too.

[oldcynic]

Call your local fire service - they'll almost certainly be happy either to come and visit or for you to go see them.

We had a crew come and visit in their fire engine when we found evidence that our oldest had been playing with fire - they fitted smoke alarms in almost every room and explained in detail to our son exactly what danger he was putting himself and everyone else in. I'm sure they can give the alternative talk to your daughter and give her some confidence once again - along with highlighting any potential issues to you in a full home safety check.

[filski666]

Mr Will said:

Munter said:

I'm no fire expert. But I understand you should have an alarm upstairs where people sleep as well. (From your description it sounds like you only have one downstairs).

If a phone charger/other plugged in transformer decides to catch fire in a bedroom over night, the smoke alarm downstairs will kick in some time after you've filled the top floor of the house with smoke.

If you don't have one upstairs and are going to fit one, it could be worth splashing out on an interlinked system. One downstairs, one in her room and one in yours. It's overkill, but she will probably find it comforting to know that if "her" alarm goes off, yours will too.

Yes, I was thinking this might help. We never bothered with an interlinked one before as the house is small and no problem hearing it anywhere in the house.

I think you can get wireless ones now, save running wires through the house (ie it could be fitted tonight) although presumably they get through batteries like my car gets through petrol!