It is vital kids know how to keep themselves safe in an emergency.
We can help.
Sammy & Friends stories highlight key actions kids can take, like lockdown or evacuate, without focusing too much on particular threats or hazards.
Each book contains adult focused content on how to have big discussions and guide the conversation when children are focused on particular threats or hazards, like a bad person in the school or a fire. This can help adults recognize and honor any fears while redirecting the conversation towards building subject matter expertise and empowerment in kids.
Teaching kids that other people, or in this case forest friends, practice being safe helps to normalize safety practices like emergency drills. Having age-appropriate, trauma informed conversations allows kids to pose questions that might not otherwise get answered. This can help to lift the veil of fear and trauma which can so often accompany emergency drills.
Using a safe, engaging, and friendly approach allows kids to better engage with the material with their thinking brain (prefrontal cortex) instead of their stress brain (amygdala).
Within the first few pages, kids are taken away to a magical land, teaching them how to feel safe in a very calm and peaceful way. This book is a wonderful resource for preschool and elementary teachers, as well as parents, to help facilitate those difficult but real conversations needed about staying safe at school. As a mom of five young children and a school teacher of 16 years, I know that this will be a book that my classes will read over and over to help students feel open to having discussions and feeling prepared knowing the steps to follow in such an event. This will be a book I will have in my own home so my children can feel safe and knowledgeable when they are at school as well. Thank you for writing a story that brings up tough conversations, in a kid friendly way, without scaring children.
Lindsay Omeg, Mother of Five and Teacher