Special Needs for Fire Safety

Posted by Lynn Moore Oct 9, 2006

For many years, a hand-colored picture hung near my computer. It was a blue telephone with the number 9-1-1. I loved that picture (I still have it) because it was a reminder that my son was learning about fire safety. In a sense, I think I was also relieved that someone else was also teaching him fire safety practices. Surely another approach was not bad. Perhaps something would click that did not click when we talked about it at home. Perhaps he would better understand its importance as he heard it from yet another person.

A couple of years later, his sister was with the same kindergarten teacher. Again, I received the beautiful hand-colored 9-1-1 picture. Something was different this time. Shortly after Fire Prevention Week our kitchen smoke alarm went off. Indeed there was smoke, but I was cooking and nothing was out of control. My daughter yelled, "Get down and crawl! Everybody crawl!"

As parents we know that we need to teach and model safety with fire. We need to practice with our kids what to do in the case of a real fire. How can we effectively do that if the child has a hearing loss? What has worked well in your family?