She's a fire-starter, a (five year old blue-eyed butter wouldn't melt) firestarter.......help

[charliesays]

DD2, we find, has been playing with matches.

I'm asking for advice here first - has anyone had this problem, and how did you address it?

She's very inventive, I'll give her that, she's obviously secreted them in hidey holes because previously the matches were stored on a high shelf, in a basket, but she got to them.

I found some burnt out matches for the first time two days ago, and had a chat about the consequences and tried to appeal regarding how sore hot things can be, etc, etc - but I think there's a huge element of fascination there, and I want to know how to really get through to her - I really want to cover this one completely.

I thought I'd gotten through to her, but lo, hoovered their room just now, and there are more little burnt out stubs. I want to really get through to her, as I don't want it to become a situation where she's on the lookout for an opportunity. I don't want to terrify her either though. What to do, what to do.

I leave it in your hand, mumsnet.

BBQs - get a gas one

If she ever goes camping - see above

If she moves into a house with a real fire - err, long way off. She's 5.

If she gets stranded somewhere overnight and it's cold - well she'll be with grown up I'd expect

I can't believe some of you are sugesting teaching a 5 year old how to light a fire.

Apart from the bbq I think the rest aren't terribly likely. TBH even if she were stranded somewhere and cold (later on in life) she wouldn't have matches on her I doubt (seeing as she won't be a smoker ).

There are tons of things we need to learn but they aren't all taught at the age of 5.

I was responding to the post about not seeing where dd would ever need to build a fire.

Of course a 5 yr old won't (hopefully) get stranded alone, but I do think learning to build fires is an important skill to learn at some point before you leave home.

And putting all that aside I still feel 5 is too young to be learning how to make a fire. There are loads of life lessons children need under their belt for adult life but there is plenty of time later on to teach them.

agree to disagree then

It was more about teaching the OP's daughter how to strike matches safely and showing her the implications of her actions anyway. The building fires etc just led on and I think does very much depend on your environment - country/ farm children very often know more things like this from an earlier age.

Does anyone have Ray Mears' number?

I went to see Ray Mears on tour last summer. He spoke for 3 hours solid, no break. He was actually really interesting.

However, I still can't see me teaching my 5yo how to make or light a fire any time soon. Maybe when she is a teenager, then it might come up I guess (thnking BBQ perhaps)? but even then it's be supervised!

Is it Denmark where the kids at Nursery make fires regularly, supervised obviously? And the whole forest school concept here of course, where Nursery age kids toast marshmallows over fires and learn safety concepts in a sheltered environment.

In thsoe environments of course the leaders are trained (there was a forests chool attached to my former college, where my sister trained in her NNEB and visited Denmark), but personally- as s omeone who does camp a lot and doesn't use gas barbecues- I think as part of a structured environment its OK but wouldn't specifically teach my kids to use amtches etc, if you can see the difference?

but isn't it missing the point? It's not that the OP wanted to randomly teach their 5 year old how to light a fire but that she was doing so anyway so perhaps a bit of channelling/restructuring of that interest/learning would be good.

Please refer back to Wsteria's first post. Said everything I would have said (basically

1. show how to do it safely WITH supervision
2. instill in her terror about fire danger)

Ah but I answered OP long, long ago- before Uni this morning LOL

discussion moved on a bit

oops, yes, sorry not really directed at your post Peachy... (I actually agree with all the woodcraft business meself)

Meant to be in relation to how the discussion had moved on... should have been a bit clearer

forest schools

just thought I'd post a link

the kids we worked with at surestart and homestart got to go twice a term if we could arrnage it, and most other localnurseries ahd access too.

Much better than sitting on yer arse making the 4th autumn collage that week

charliesays- maybe there's one near you on that link? They might be able to offer rpactical advice

Oh sorry.Yes, a friend of mine works with forest schools and RAVES about them.

Thanks for link, will check it out for kids I teach actually (excluded teenagers, Hackney, eek)

Ok, gone WAY off topic now. Sorry again!

Well, thanks so much for all the input, we've put much of it to use already.

We had an .... interesting...chat with DD2 this afternoon, and have more information on the actual situation - apparently there was an element of collaboration from DD1, which we think explains the repetition of the act.

DD1, eventually, blurted out that they "weren't lighting matches, they were practicing putting them out", for which we award ten points for imaginative revisionism.

DD2, or Dante, as we now call her, is as far as we can see chastened by this mornings discovery, and the conversation we had after school struck the fear of god into her with regards to fire, we think.

We belatedly remembered a friend who endured a house fire (no injuries, property damage only, dd2 was not known to be in the vicinity at the time), and she dug out some before and after photos for us, which we saved for the end of the discussion, and I think they helped drive the message home - relating their little pile of matches to what happened to Aunty X's house seems to have made it a little more real.

I called the school, and the head was extremely helpful, and is keen to have a member of the fire service round soon for a general educational talk, and she is going to keep an eye out and an ear to the ground on this topic at playtime - it's a very small school, so I'm confident if anything's going on there, she'll hear about it.

(As far as forest schools go, btw, they look great but there are none in remotely our neck of the woods!)

So, thank you for all the advice, it's nice having here to turn to as my mum would just say "It's a phase", and his mum would say "It's your fault", so a little balance is always helpful!

I think living as we do, where there are regular bonfires on the farm, two open fires and two woodburners in the house, all in frequent, some in daily use, we're not going to adopt any kind of zero tolerance attitude with reference to fire; it's intrinsic to their existence, part of living in the depths of the country, practical application of their knowledge of fire safety will protect them more than avoiding it. We're ramping up the safe and responsible usage message, and keeping emphasis on the fact that fire cannot be abused and is not a plaything, but a tool.

Phew.

So, seriously, has anyone got Ray Mear's number? (letch, letch)

Thanks again all.x