#at this safety centre that something left plugged in even turned off was dangerous

[imaginaryberries]

Recently I saw someone on the Glasgow subreddit post about an experience they'd had in primary school of being taken to a 'safety centre' as a class where they were put through various simulations of dangerous situations - like loads of wee rooms, one for example being set up to be a train platform with a track that had a fiver on it, to show the dangers of jumping on to the tracks, that sort of thing. Reading the post was like a jumpscare because I remember this too, and the one that always haunted me was the one that was set up like a kids' bedroom and they showed you all the potential fire hazards - plug sockets by beds, charger cables getting hot etc.

Something I'd forgotten though, but then vaguely remembered once I'd read it, is that they also then simulated a fire happening. Like, room filled with smoke, people banging on doors and acting like it was real etc and you had to escape without making the mistake of grabbing the door handle (as it would be hot and your skin would melt and stick to it) and whatever.

The thing is. Obviously unbeknownst to them but still something that could be predicted to have happened to at least some of the children going through this. I had already had a traumatic fire experience very similar to this a few years previously. When I was a kid my dad's neighbour set his flat on fire and we all had to be evacuated. It was a Defining Childhood Event for me.

Like. The OP of the Reddit post only wrote it in the first place because they'd been explaining it to Australian friends who were horrified. It just seems an insane thing to put children through when like I said, there's bound to be a portion of them who will be legitimately retraumatised by it. I'm a lot better than I was but I have previously been, like, OCD-level anxious about fire, and those two incidents - in fact the 'safety centre' one more than the actual fire - are absolutely the reason why. Obv teaching kids to be careful is important but I feel like there are better ways to do it lol