dangerous animals!

[mummabare]

How do you teach a 3 yr old about poisonous animals Dillon tried to pick up a dugite (snake) while gardening with dad..........poor dad nearly had a heart attack

He's always picking up spiders too, he says their cute....all a matter of taste i guess but im worried he's gonna get bitten.

Should I get some books out? Any tips

[Siobhan]

Interesting one... There's an old Reader's Digest book called Australia's Dangerous Creatures (1988) that I loved reading as a kid, lots of pictures and interesting and scary stories! The info's pretty good, lots of scientific types use it as a accessible reference for the public. It does have a few gross pictures, that's all (necrotising faciitis, a shark bite and the like, from memory).

Perhaps a book like that, showing him the types of spiders and snakes he needs to not touch, with the understanding that he shouldn't touch any new animal without an adult's ok (a strange dog is potentially as dangerous as a snake or spider, and I say this as a dog lover. ). You could combine this with a trip out to one of the reptile parks, where he can pat non-venomous snakes and friendly lizards in a safe environment, if he really likes them!

There's one in the Swan Valley and one in Armadale, from memory...

[Siobhan]

Here's the book I was thinking of, a copy fairly cheap on ebay, except for postage.

I meant to say, I think you're going about it the right way... education's always better than fear. I have a spider phobia, and I really wish I didn't!

[Hailstorm]

I agree with Siobhan a trip to a reptile park or even a local zoo where he can see which ones are the dangerous ones.
Do you live in a very rural area? with lots of dangerous creatures? maybe you could get a poster showing some of the more dangerous animals and put it up on the back door or something that way he will know that if he sees one not to touch it? and he will probably love learning about all the different species
HTH

[mama_bel]

We have dangerous creatures type books. We show the kids from toddler-hood which ones are bitey and which creatures are harmless. So, you wanna play with reptiles - observe a skink! Spiders? Daddy-long-legs is our friend!

[~Luna~]

I had this problem with my girls when I lived in Warrandyte and we had brown snakes.
We moved house because I became a nervous wreck over it..


Has this post eased your worries Kristi?

[mummabare]

Well I found an animal sticker book and we went through that last night and I emphasised the fact that if he finds a spider or a snake he needs to come tell mummy right away because they might bite, and all the other animals he must as mummy first if he can touch. Even dogs ( gawd he loves them its a p.i.t.a).

Just hope it sticks in his head, Im gonna have to keep reminding him I think.

[alzarex]

Since we moved over here from a nice 'safe' unit to our house 2 doors from the reserve (what exactly were we thinking... )

We tell DS and DD that spiders and snakes bite. And that some of them will make us very sick (to which DS stage whispers to DD "that means dead") so we don't touch them and we must always tell an adult if we see one. We had a few days early on encounters with redbacks, dugites, wasps and something else - maybe rusty metal? which involved a big walk around the garden talking about things we do and don't touch. Luckily for us if we ask DS to remember to make sure that DD doesn't get hurt then he seems to take the information on board a lot more, for himself too, so we've made a point of him having to tell us if he sees anything (snake spider etc) asap so we can make sure everyone is safe.

I'd rather be bugged about a harmless spider a zillion times than have them get it wrong and play with a nasty one.

it took us a while and lots of talking about it in day to day situations, he's not scared of them, just very wary - kind of the way I'd like him to be about cars and roads too.

we also have the friends from the garden that we can say hello to, caterpillars, skinks, butterflys and inside daddy long legs but that's about it for now as they have a catch and release game that is big on catching but not so big on releasing tho that did mean that they got to watch the life cycle caterpillar->cocoon -> butterfly happen in their container which was pretty awesome.

But as DD has no qualms whatsoever about catching a little lizard and holding it's body in one hand and it's dropped squirming tail in the other we have told them they can only catch things if they check with us first.

good luck with it all

[monique]

we had a tiger snake it the house over summer luckily mum saw it and we managed to get a snake catcher out. When he got there the snake was in my dads bed. after he court it he he let willow touch it (the tail) and he explained to her how dangerous it was. She also watched Wiggly saffari and there is a song on ther called you can look but you better not touch

[Jakaluma]

We taught Never touch any animal. You look, observe, learn and above all respect.

There are animals that can hurt you (especially if frightened) but there are plenty that you can accidently hurt too (just from your body oils like butterfly wings or your big fingers squeezing too tightly etc).