Why Parents Need to Teach Young Kids about Fire Safety

[Suzanne Morton]

The scary truth is, the smallest kids are at the biggest risk to be injured or killed by fire and burns. A young child’s development makes escaping a fire much more difficult and injuries from burns more severe because:

• Young children can’t perceive danger as well as older children.
• Children can’t react quickly to a fire and often don’t know what to do in an emergency.
• They have thinner skin than adults and burn more quickly.

We at Safe Kids have done a great deal to educate parents about injury risks to children, but we haven’t done as much to actually teach the kids. They can be a tough crowd! Anyone who has tried to keep the attention of a bunch of 4-year-olds knows exactly what I mean. It also can be hard to capture the attention of parents of children at this age—there’s just so much to do! So we wanted to come up with a way that helps parents keep their kids entertained but could also teach them the fire-safety skills that could save their lives.

Brecker Bunny Takes on Fire Safety
As I talked with my advisory board of fire safety experts from our Safe Kids coalitions across the country, we came up with the idea of developing a storybook that could educate young kids and also help parents learn more about fire safety too.

One of our Safe Kids coalitions in Wisconsin had partnered with Hilary Bilbrey, a mom and founder of Inspired by Family, LLC. She wrote a children’s book, “Brecker Bunny Learns to be Careful! A Lesson in Fire and Burn Safety” after her own young son suffered a severe scald burn. Brecker helps teach kids and their families to stay safe by sharing important safety information with children at a level that they can understand. Our coalitions in Wisconsin had wonderful success in using this book to teach young children about fire and burn safety.

I was introduced to Hilary, and we started discussing the storybook idea and I knew we had found a perfect match. We decided to partner to write another Brecker Bunny story called “Brecker Bunny Asks for Help: A Lesson in Fire Safety”. This book, made possible via a grant from the USFA, focuses on teaching children to tell an adult if they see matches or a lighter or see other things that might cause a fire around the house. According to the National Fire Protection Association, the leading cause of fire-related injury – as well as one of the leading causes of fire-related deaths – of children ages 3 to 6 is children playing with matches, lighters, and other heat sources.

Additional Fire Safety Materials
In addition to the storybook, we created “Fire + Burn Safety: A Guide for Parents of Young Children.” This parent guide covers multiple aspects of fire and burn safety, such as smoke alarms, escape planning, and safety tips for different rooms in the house. To date we have distributed thousands of this guide and storybook to Safe Kids coalitions across the country, who are continuously reaching out to preschools, kindergartens, WIC programs, and other groups who serve parents of young children.

It was great to partner with Inspired by Family on this project as it allowed us to find a way to make learning fun for both young children and their parents! Find out more about the Brecker Bunny book and the guide for parents in your community by going to www.usa.safekids.org and using the drop down menu to find a coalition near you.