Advice on what to tell children about if theres a fire

[juliaemma]

What do you all say to your charges about if theres a fire?? Its hard to know what to say, as woudnt it depend on where the fire is???

If they hear the bell they have to stop playing,stand up and get in a line where you will take then outside away from the fire.

A bell!! Do you have a bell then?

i have told my kids not to hide. apparently its quite common for parents to leave kids inside cos they think they have gone out but they are under the bed or in the wardrobe. horrible thought

We will do a fire drill based on the smoke alarms going off and a hand bell. We intend to do it every week and try and make it fun yet habitual, but basically line up, hold each others hand and we'll take it in turn deciding on which exit would be best depending on which alarm goes off.

Joe

I have a fire alarm which the children call the bell.

Shout FIRE very loudly then throw them out the window onto mattresses!

I practice this with mine every week. I say it's for fire drills but really I just like it!

Basically the children just need to be aware what the smoke detector sounds like so that should it go off they will not be frightened by it and know to stop what they are doing and stand still and wait for you to tell them which way to go out.
Don't think you need to frighten them by actually going into too much detail about fire.
We practice this once a month and the kids find it quite exciting.

PLEASE also make sure your own children (and you) know what to do if your smoke detector goes off in the night, not much point having one if you don't have a fire plan. (sorry to go on, but dh is a firefighter and since lots of fires happen in the middle of the night, he thinks this is extremely important).