Safety Town?

May 19, 2006

I've been debating sending my son Sam, 5, to " Safety Town " this summer

and would love some opinions.

Sam is hard of hearing, aided, and does well hearing in the classroom

(a personal FM system is used).

If your child has gone to Safety Town, have you had any specific

accomadations made?

I doubt the police department has access to an FM system - though

perhaps, they could borrow his from the school.

In our town, Safety Town is HUGE - hundreds of little kids in a loud,

hectic environment. Most of the instruction is done in a gym setting,

and then small group work with teenage group leaders.

Another issue at play is that Sam is a very anxious child - this is

not an optimal setting for him, at all. He has been in an

integrated special needs pre-k for 2.5 years, and is gotten more

comfortable in that setting. He's excited about kindergarten (which

will be bigger with less aides than pre-k) and I'm a little worried

about turning him off to that with this big Safety Town extravaganza.

Can you tell that I'm leaning against the idea?

For the hearing issue and the anxiety issue, I'm thinking it's just

not the right place for him to learn safety - and we can just work on

that at home with this summer. On the other hand, am I denying him

some right of passage?

If you sent your deaf/hoh child to safety town, how did it go? Anyone

decide against it?

Thanks,

May 19, 2006

,

We have a similar program in our town (I forget the name of it). They

divide the program up into age appropriate groups (like 3-5, 5-7, etc)

and limit the participants to 15 kids per group. I should say that

while the program our town does is well received, not many people sign

their kids up for it. The schools all have a safety month at the

beginning of the spring where they teach age appropriate safety things

to the classrooms (in my daughter's 4-5 year old preschool room, the

focus this year was on electricity, staying away from wires, etc.).

Hadley has had friends who have attended the town program as a Pre-K or

K student, and all the parents have said that it was just ok. The take

away that their kids remembered was to yell " NO! " . There are many loud

screams of " NO! " in those households now, kind of like crying

wolf...

If you want Sam to go to the program and you think it will really

benefit him, then you'll find a way to make it a productive experience

for him. If you don't want him to attend the program (you don't like

the way it is set up, you don't like the teen facilitators, you don't

like the content, you are concerned about his reaction, etc), then he

doesn't have to go. There are plenty of books, web sites, and games

that guide parents into how to instruct their children on safety rules,

the dangerous stranger, etc. He can learn it all just as effectively in

small doses than all at once at camp.

As far as whether to send him because everyone else is doing it, does