Health and safety clinic eases little ones’ anxieties

By DEANNA RUDISILL–OVERMANN
Special to the Register & Bee
Published: October 25, 2008

Whether caught in a burning house or lost in a shopping center, it seems children often fear the emergency personnel trying to help them. It was this understanding that gave high school seniors Lyndsey Moser and Abby Burnette a good idea for their senior research project for the Piedmont Governor’s School for Math, Science and Technology.

A Beary Fun Day, which was designed to both explore this problem and aid youngsters, first introduced children to a fireman, police officers, a nurse and a dental hygienist and then asked them questions about how the encounter affected their perceptions of the adults. The event took place on Saturday at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville, and, despite the dreary weather, 22 children and their families showed up to participate.

The 2- to 7-year-old children were each allowed to pick out a teddy bear and take it with them from station to station. At each stop, they met with different medical or emergency personnel who took care of the children’s new stuffed friends while discussing their fields, giving the kids a very human side to their often frightening image.

“We are studying how, if you present safety information to children, will it have them actually practice this new knowledge in society and trust to go to police officers for safety and not be afraid of the dentist or have no effect at all,” Moser, who attends Chatham High School, said. “Some were clearly afraid when they came in. One child said they would not go anywhere near the room with the firemen.”

A plain-clothed fireman from the Danville Fire Department talked about how firefighters are fathers or grandfathers, then slowly put on his firefighting garb and allowed the kids to come up and knock on the helmet and feel the suit.

“In a fire, it can be dark and smoky. It is very disorienting, and kids get scared of the firemen,” said Capt. Barry Neal. “With the breathing apparatus the firemen can also sound like Darth Vader, and sometimes kids will hide from them. That’s our worse nightmare.”

“So we show them how we are normal people who just put on our suits when there is an emergency like Superman or Spider Man,” Neal added. “We also tell them to be safe; not to play with matches; to stop, drop, and roll; and call 911 if they smell smoke or see a fire.”

The wide-eyed youngsters chanted back their new lessons as they left the classroom.

Six-year-old Katie Giles walked along with her red teddy bear. “I learned about the dentist and how they clean your teeth, but I already liked the dentist,” she said. “But I am a little afraid of the doctor. I got a shot when I was four, and I screamed and screamed.”

“We are doing surveys before and after the program to see how the information and contact with the professionals doing work on their bears changed their feelings towards trusting these individuals,” Burnette, who attends Gretna High School, said.

One of her classmates was optimistic.

“There was a four-year-old named Shawnee, and he was hiding under the table when we came into the dentist room. I talked to him and told him that the dental assistant was real nice, and he eventually came out and sat with the others,” said senior Chris West. “By the end of the program, I could tell by his body language that he was content and even relaxed.”

As the children learned to be more relaxed around emergency personnel, the parents were in a separate classroom learning how to be more cautious in a society of online predators.

“I already knew a lot about the subject,” said parent Tim Sain, who works for the Department of Defense at Fort Bragg. “But I did learn that we can all become complacent and that we need to play a more active role in what our children are involved with.”