Since the fire incident Sunday I’ve had some time to ponder lessons learned. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
- It’s important to have a fire escape plan in case of fire in your home. Kids should know what exits to use, where to meet, and how to call for help AFTER leaving the danger zone.
- Equally important is having a plan for how to handle emergencies away from home. One friend told me this week that she even goes over escape details when her family is in a hotel. Never thought of that before.
- Everybody processes the shock of a dangerous situation differently. Some cried on-scene (that would be some of us older folks) while others reacted later at home.
- Any question the children have about the event needs to be answered, even if it’s the 50th time they have asked.
- Children may tell the story of their adventure many times before getting it out of their system. We tried to keep focusing them on reality when exaggerations started to creep in.
Is there anything I’ve missed? Have you had an exciting/dangerous situation that taught you and the kids lessons? How did they handle it? What about you?
Earnest Parenting: help for the safety-conscious parent.
Nice tips… May I translate in Bahasa Indonesia and Re-post in my blog? Hope you dont mind.. Please visit my blog and leave comment on it! Anywhere you want to comment. My Guessbook is Silaturrahmi page..! Nice be here…
I liked the interesting lesson rather lessons…
Nice, informative and quite interesting too…
nice posting….
Always ready fire extinguisher in your home
don’t play the fire iy you dont wanna get burned 🙂
nice post..
im indonesian blogger, nice to see u
Thanks for the tips..sad to say I am a victim of a fire.not only once but twice…so sad..most of my belongings are gone…:(..hope soon no more fire.
Tips are good and they’ll be useful also if they should be kept in mind.
I remember that just last month, a friend of mine, who is a mother of two, had this very bad experience of fire when they were setting up decorations on their staircase. Suddenly, a light inflicted a big fire that made her two children panic. My mom friend panicked as well. It was their first time to encounter a big fire. It was a good thing that in that instant came her husband who happened to be alert and aware of the situation more than her wife and daughters. He immediately ran them out of the house and then called the nearest fire station. The fire was quickly extinguished, though.
Later on, I asked my friend how she managed to tell her kids what had happened. She told me that she did not lie about some fantasies or imaginary stories just for the young ones not to believe on real danger that fire can bring about.
I, so, believe that being a parent requires ourselves to be diligent on how we raise our children. In case of fire, panicking is never a good thing to do.
Outsource bookkeeping, thanks for stopping by!
Khafi, nice to see you. Always happy to hear from new readers.
Custom Items, that’s good advice. We need to have more extinguishers around here, for sure.
Galihrock, Indonesia, wow! I would love to travel there someday and see the sights. Hubby and I love to travel.
Horse racing news I’m sorry to hear of your experiences. I hope you don’t have fires again.
Wii Fit, thank you as well.
Air Jordans that’s very true. One thing I often emphasize to the boys is the need to remain calm in tough situations.
Thanks for the tips, Its so easy to be complacent and forget all the lessons learned a few years on. Which reminds me how long its been since i went through any kind of emergency plan with my family.
Thanks. I am reminded again to go through the escape plan we made months ago.
Pinoy, you’re so right! Having been through this experience certainly gave me some better ideas on what to plan with the boys. I’d never thought of it before, but realized the other day that technically they could grab a phone on their way out the door and start dialing for help without having to wait for a neighbor to be available.
Acne, reminders of the plan are always a good thing.
well, my parents used to told me not to lock my door room when i’m sleeping..
and i couldn’t imagine if it happen in hotels or high building.. cause using elevators will be risky..
the only way is finding the emergency exits which will hard to find when we get panic..
No matter how hard the situation is we have to stay focus so we can think or remember way out.
Pray is the easy way out of any of your hard situation.
GBU
Thank you for the great tips….I will keep all of this in mind….I want to just send my love to all of those who are victimes of this tragic fire….my heart goes out to you all and you are all in my prayers.
Sometimes these important topics get shoved to the back of our priorities list. This is very crucial to talk about. Thanks for reminding me to replace my 5 year old kitchen fire extinguisher.:)
Junaidy, your parents had good advice. How awful would it be if the door was locked and they couldn’t get to you? A good friend of mine says she always counts the number of doors in the hallway to the left and right of her hotel room door and writes it down so that if there was a fire she’d know how far to the stairs. I’d never even thought of that before! She said if you know how many doors, you can count them as you’re crawling down the hallway. Plus you know which way is closer to the stairs.
Ty, you’re welcome. Thankfully the damage here was minimal (other than the very expensive skidsteer that was destroyed). The next week there wasn’t even a smell of smoke in the house. Amazing!
Air Jordans, buying more fire extinguishers is suddenly more important around here as well. We got one the other day and will continue to add to the supply as we can manage. How many do you have in your home?
i live in Kalimantan (Borneo Island, Indonesia)
there are often fire incident happens here, since lots of woods and the weather is extremely hot.
But, the unbelieveable thing is i don’t think there is a house in indonesia have a fire extinguishers..
junaidy, wow. I hope you never suffer a house fire. Or any fire, for that matter. 🙂