Teaching Kids About Fire Safety

October is Fire Prevention Month and Goddard Ashburn is reviewing fire safety with the kids at school, but you can help at home too.

Here are a few tips for teaching fire safety to kids.

• Practice fire drills at home – rehearse different emergency scenarios with your family. This can avoid wasting valuable time when you’re dealing with an emergency in your home.

• Talk about escape routes for each room of your home.

• Designate a meeting place outside your home that is a safe distance away

• Test your plan

It’s always good to introduce scary topics to your children through games. Here are a few games that teach valuable safety lessons.

Feel Your Way to Safety – have your kids close their eyes and feel their way out of the home. This can also help your kids get some exercise. Just make sure you watch your kids closely so they don’t fall and get hurt.

Stop, Drop and Roll – press your fire alarm test button or simply say go and have your kids see how fast they can stop, drop and roll.

Teach your kids about fire safety

Explain what smoke detectors, escape ladders and fire extinguishers are – explain to your kids how they work, why they are installed in the house and what they will do when you use them.

Explain that getting out of the house is most important in a fire. And once you’re out, stay out.

These rules can go a long way to protecting and even saving the lives of your family.