The school have successfully ruined bonfire night for my DS

[goingupinsmoke]

I'm wondering AIBU, I'm sat her pretty peed off. DH and I arranged to put our dogs with a friend and we bought a small selection of fireworks for the back garden, these were low noise tame ones DS are 8 & 5. It was supposed to be a surprise!!

So the boys come out and are scared to death of the fireworks, and started to tell us the school have been talking all day about the danger, they have shown my DS 8 pictures of people with burnt faces, he described the eyelids all burnt, people with burnt tummys and one picture of someone missing a leg.

Don't get me started on sparklers, Oh no mum we are not allowed them, look my coat has big sleeves, our gloves aren't the correct type.

Sod this over protective nonsense, there is safety then there is scaring kids stupid and wrecking something that should be fun.

Opinions??

I hate fireworks with a passion. I went to school with a girl who had been very badly injured in a fireworks accident at her home. I've never forgotten her, and I don't ever want anything like that to happen to my DDs.

I can't wait for the day they are made illegal here too.

Oh, and all the lovers of back garden fireworks displays might want to spare a thought for their neighbours' pets. I've spent the last couple of days with 2 terrified cats and LittleDog going crazy every time a firework is let off.

Thank God I live in an area that's heavily farmed, and there's not many people who have displays.

Unfortunately for all the responsible people out there, you only need one idiot to cause a tragedy and the sooner that kids understand that with rights come responsibilities the better.

However, that doesn't mean scaring them half witless when they are still pretty young - so yes, show them the problems of what can happen when things go wrong, but also show them that they can go right too. Age appropriate is the way to go.

One of the problems is they do all these talks in primary school where they are by and large effective - but then you rarely come across them at senior school when there are likely to be more kids that think it's funny to throw fireworks at people and have the pocket money to buy the fireworks to do just that (having been at a big firework display at Ally Pally in my uni days and seeing a rocket whizz past that had been set off horizontally and missed my ear by a whisker according to others who were watching - they do still scare me when I think of what could happen. And I know others who have suffered much more on fireworks night :( )

You can arrange for someone to look after your dogs for a back garden display but not for a public display? YABU

Her neighbours can´t have the dogs when it is the public display.

Don´t people read the thread??!!

I think that it is a shame that the children are now scared & whilst I do agree with warnings, I think that the twats who deliberately mess with fireworks will do so anyway.

It´s a shame that they will probably be banned because of the few who won´t act sensibly.

Lovely to see a whole range of views here- personally I think it's a shame that children are being scared by 70s style public service stuff. I'm still afraid of pylons and canals.

My dogs appear to be of great concern to some posters but you can rest assured they are well looked after.

Dh put on fb last night about his annoyance and got completely contrasting views from the men on his fb- mostly saying tar kids these days are all being made so afraid of everything how will they ever learn about real safety.

I feel safer in my back garden with my ds than at a public display, while the fireworks are controlled the crowds and idiots on the crowds are not, so I'd be more fearful of the fireworks that the crowd are holding and throwing.

I also think that 5 & 8 is quite young-so unless there´s a display that´s at a convenient time for that age, then that means that they can´t go anyway.

I'm of the 'they should be illegal except for proper organised displays' brigade and supermarkets selling fireworks is the most stupid thing in the world. I've been to organised displays in small villages, towns and even a city and never yet found idiots in the crowd holding and throwing fireworks as goingupinsmoke mentions.

Bonfire Night is now like Christmas. Starts earlier and earlier each year and seems to go on twice as long. Have had people letting off fireworks in their gardens for the last week and must be a nightmare for all the pets. Not to mention the idiots who think it's funny to let them off really late at night and in the morning.

I take the point that health and safety CAN go too far, but not in the case of fireworks. They can maim and kill.

Problem is, like with anything, if you ban fireworks they will still be available by other means. Other means that are completely unregulated, so fireworks may not meet current safety standards. Other means that will help feed criminal activity...

Bloody hell there is even more fearmongering on this thread! Get a grip! As long as a responsible adult setting them off, and people are a decent distance away from them, what is the problem? Yes they can go wrong, but rarely and in most cases it is when they are being misused.

I was at a back garden display on Sat, everyone is still alive and in one piece.

secret of course plenty of back garden displays don't have accidents. but as has been pointed out earlier, the fire brigade will receive 3 times as many callouts as on any other night and A&Es are always much busier. I have an uncle and a friend in the fire service and know a couple of nurses and all tell me that the vast majority of these 'additional' incidents are from back garden type displays, and rarely from organised ones.

Not read all the posts jut first couple of pages but going to go against the grain and say YANBU. Firework safety at school is fab children NEED to know the danger of fireworks but graphic pictures that terrify them are not on imo. Not all towns and villages have organised displays i dont know of one in a 60 mile radius of my home. We have 2 boys 6 and 1 and we didnt buy fireworks this year as tbh i hate watching my money go up in smoke but we watched all the neighbours near by from the garden and it was wonderfull. We did do sparklers and used them safely despite my son having sensory issues and poor impulse control i held onto him and ensured he was safe and he loved it. He was well informed by school too on the dangers and was telling us what he had learned. We then came in and had hot chocolates before bed he told me it was his best day ever better than christmas!

Of course they are dangerous and expensive and pointless that the whole point of fireworks.

You send money up in sparkly beautiful, slightly risky sparks.

Just as you learn to cross the road, use a kettle, light our eccentric gas stove or drive a car, you learn to be careful with sparklers, bonfires and fireworks.

Lighting your first rocket is a right of passage, it's part of growing up.

(For my DDad and DH it was making their own, but that is, perhaps a step too far).

Too much cotton wool and too much Nanny State is bad for people. We need a small amount of risk, we need to swim in the sea when the waves are breaking, we need to climb that tree, we need to send a rocket screaming into the sky. Way better we do this than get pissed, stoned and layed.

Please don't reduce the dangers in my life to driving on the M5 motorway. Which given the no. of accidents I get delayed by is probably the most dangerous thing I ever do.

Stars those comparisons are really strange - crossing the road, using a kettle and lighting a stove are all totally necessary parts of day to day living. Lighting a firework isn't. I've never even seen a firework up close (though I have seen them in displays) and I've managed to live a relatively normal life!

As for them being illegal making them go "underground" - In the 23 years I lived in Ireland (where they are illegal) I never once heard of illegally bought fireworks. People just don't buy them. They're considered similar to stage lighting - something you see at a display but not something people generally buy for their own use. I think most people there would consider you a bit mad if you did want to buy them to use them in the garden - the general feeling is that they're very dangerous and not to be messed with.

i agree with stars

I think we have a more chilled out group during daytime hours!

Problem is, like with anything, if you ban fireworks they will still be available by other means. Other means that are completely unregulated, so fireworks may not meet current safety standards. Other means that will help feed criminal activity...

That's absolutely right. People will start to have secret firework parties so that nobody who might report them will know what they are getting up to. How are they going to manage that exactly?

Isn't the whole point of a public display that there aren't any "idiots in the crowd throwing their own fireworks"? . Have you got the wrong end of the stick, op? They're controlled; not a giant free for all.

I never understood during my childhood why adults kept giving me sparklers - they were acting like it was a treat - I was bloody terrified of the things. I think that was due to safety adverts on TV and in school.

Even as an adult people occasionally try and give them to me still to do ?fun? things with. I don?t ?get? the appeal.

We go to organised displays but DH would like to do a home display. He did one a few years ago ? and ended up running down the garden path ? I was on edge the entire time and that didn?t help. There an organised display in town and while it a pain getting there and back we do it and have fun. I?d actually support a over the counter ban ? perhaps as going to displays get more common that will happen.

Love the idea of a secret firework parties - perhaps they set a few off run to their cars relocate and repeat?

We had wonderful back garden firework parties all through my childhood with no accidents thankfully-my Dad was super vigilant and serious about firework safety.

In contrast, I went to my first ever public display in York many years ago. There were hundreds and hundreds of people there, and guess who got hit heavily on the head by a large rocket stick. Bah!

I always take my own kids to public displays but we do have sparklers in our back garden - just my own kids, and they are all sensible with them. I agree with safety talks being given in school but also think there's a line between "be careful" and OMG don't go near that!". I have no issue with sensible people who have their own fireworks in their own gardens but as a result of very many idiots I also think we need to go down the route of public displays only, licensing to buy fireworks and very limited times when they can be used. Peopl eshould also be banned from storing fireworks, many people keep them for New Year and this is dangerous.

YANBU to want to do back garden fireworks. Sounds like the school safety message went a bit OTT. Yes, we know fireworks can kill. So can cars. They can also be great fun and bonfire night is part of British culture stretching back centuries. I have let my DD and friends have sparklers from the age of 4 at special occasions (supervised by me and their parents) with a bucket of water standing by and safety precautions such as kids well spaced apart and a very clear safety demonstration. IMO if you give kids the responsibility and very clear guidelines and boundaries in the right situation they are more than capable of rising to the occasion. Sadly, where I live, fireworks have been banned from sale to the public for many years and bonfire night no longer exists. I miss it.

YABU. Private/garden fireworks displays are dangerous, and a nuisance for your neighbours (unless you live in the arse end of nowhere with no-one for miles, obviously). While I can see that scaring small children isn't necessarily the best way to go, if it stops them being stupid or getting hurt in the future then don't complain!

When I was a teenager, the people who lived opposite us were letting off fireworks in their back garden - I was outside to watch, when out of nowhere a firework came hurtling out of the sky and narrowly missed their son who was standing in the drive having a fag!
Fireworks are unpredictable and dangerous. Even the most carefully planned display can suddenly go wrong - there's a story on the BBC news site right now that shows that rather clearly.

Thought your friend had the dogs? Sorry I agree with your son, I'd only allow sparklers and with me holding them too and carefully (and I wouldn't be overly happy about it) IMO fireworks need banning from public sale, even when used 'properly' it's easy for accidents to happen.

xx