Fire Alarm Trauma

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe let her push the button to activate it a few times so she has some feeling of power/control over it. I'd also let her know that the smoke detector is there to keep her safe. Role playing is another good way to help her deal, if not with the actual alarm then with you acting out the alarm.

I would get her earmuffs to protect her hearing if you're going to do this.
Or you can put an alarm on your phone and practice with that.

[Anonymous]

This happened to us in a beach house last year. My DS was 3 and ever since that, each night he asks, "No beep you promise?" It's been over a year and, without fail, he asks it every night. A simple, "you are safe and mommy and daddy will take care of you" seems to help but I understand what you are going through!

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone. She does seem a bit obsessed with fire alarms everywhere we go, so maybe that's just her way of coping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 3.5 year old had a similar reaction when we had an incident in our apartment building. The alarms are crazy loud. What helped was talking about what to do during a fire and even practicing a fire drill, including gathering our cat, feeling the doors for heat, taking the stairs (not the building elevators), and exiting the building. It gave her a sense of empowerment to know what to do. Her daycare/preschool also had drills, so that helped as well.

I don't think I could find our cat because she hates loud noses and would dive for cover. If there is a fire, we are not looking for the cat.

So don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last week our smoke detector went off in the middle of the night, and since then our 2.5 year old has been pretty traumatized. I went to get her right away and calmed her down and put her back to sleep, but now everywhere we go she looks for smoke detectors and asks if there is going to be a fire and seems a bit worried about it. When she is with an adult she is fine, but every time we put her down for a nap or bed she screams and cries that there is going to be a fire and says she doesn't want to sleep with the alarm in her room. Of course we can't remove it, so we just keep telling her it was an accident and there is no fire (in addition to beeping it kept saying "fire fire"), but if there is a fire mommy and daddy will come in right away.

Anyone have thoughts for what else we can do? She is genuinely upset about it and it seems to be getting worse vs better.

Just remove it from her room, and put it in the hallway outside her room instead. She probably lies in bed looking up at it worrying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 3.5 year old had a similar reaction when we had an incident in our apartment building. The alarms are crazy loud. What helped was talking about what to do during a fire and even practicing a fire drill, including gathering our cat, feeling the doors for heat, taking the stairs (not the building elevators), and exiting the building. It gave her a sense of empowerment to know what to do. Her daycare/preschool also had drills, so that helped as well.

I don't think I could find our cat because she hates loud noses and would dive for cover. If there is a fire, we are not looking for the cat.

Aw, mean. Poor cat!