Firestarter

My son did the same thing when he was that age. Just having someone talk about fire safty doesn't always drive the message home. I went to the fire house and had the fire chief talk to my son. He did so very sternly and then showed him a movie of a house started on fire from someone lighting matches and one of a house on fire because of Christmas lights. At first, I thought it would only scare my son but he never played with fire after that. We also talked about burns and how bad they can be. It seemed to help. If one of your friends is a firefighter they should have some tips for you too. Also, since it happened at your in-laws maybe he was acting out because something upset him. Try to bring up the subject sometime when he's not in trouble. You can get better results then. Good luck!!!

Any fire department will help you with this one. Hopefully, they will be able to show him how bad it is to play with fire.
G.

My 5 year old son was doing the same thing up until a few weeks ago. We live in an area where every spring we burn our yards or fields and cut trees etc. Also during the winter we have a lot of bonfires. It is so hard to explain to him the difference, especially because death and loss of your home or family is so impossible for a boy of 5 to understand. I did not have any success either, and I also visited the fire station and gone that route. what seemed to finally work was a version of what one mom's advice already was. We had a fire going in the woods and he was fascinated. So I took the opportunity to relate what he was seeing to how destructive fire can be. I allowed him to throw a paperplate into the fire and watch it burn while I compared it to that being the skin on his arm or face or worse. I know this seems so harsh, but when nothing else works, i would rather seem cruel than loose my son. His eyes grew round and he looked like he was about to cry, but he speeks very reverently now when he talks about fire. and I have not caught him with matches, lighters or even the spoken thought of wanting to start a fire.

Hi C.

My son is almost 4 and he blow up my microwave and started my toaster on fire in a 2 day period talk about major damage and he did it in the middle of the night. So what I did was, like the other mothers suggested is to take him to your local fire department and they will help you, but I also had my own tactics since my little sister started my house on fire when she was my sons age, so I took him back to my home town, the house that caught on fire and we walked through it with the fire chief so he could see first hand what playing with fire could really do, because I didn't think pictures or a movie was going to solve the problem. So maybe if your local fire department does a drill with an actual house or were they do there drills and let your son see the after effect of fire first hand, it worked for me. He won't touch anything that has to do with fire, or my kitchen

Hey,

Have you thought of taking him to a local fire station and asking the firefighters for help with this? They might be just what you need and are usually very helpful with kids.

:)T

I know parents nowdays would just be appalled at this but it worked. My mother would make us hold matches until they burnt our fingers, if she caught us playing with matches. It worked. It's like the whole stove thing, until kids get burned they don't understand what the danger is in the stove. No matter how many times you tell them. I'm not saying burn your child or anything but it certainly worked with my brothers and myself.