I’ve become a major party pooper with fireworks…especially when it comes to sparklers. This was a picture taken last year when we were having lots of fun with the sparklers…
Within a minute of this picture being taken, Little Brother got burned on his calf when he ran into the end of a burned-out sparkler that someone was holding on the steps behind us. It was awful. The burn was third degree and burned through several layers of skin, taking over a month to fully heal. Thankfully, it was a very small burn (in size, that is)…but he still has a significant scar. We even put tennis shoes on him as a preventative to keep his toes from being burned and could never have anticipated how he could have gotten burned the way that he did.
Sparklers are so fun and beautiful but they are sooooo dangerous for little kids. According to this source, sparklers reach an astounding 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit and are responsible for 16% of injuries around the 4th of July. Needless to say, our children will not be using sparklers for a very long time (much to the dismay of my husband and his family who are pretty much crazy about fireworks in general).
If you want your little one to feel like they get to use sparklers without any threats of burns, try making these danger-free “sparklers”. These would be great to have on hand for little ones at a party where older kids and adults may be using sparklers so they don’t feel left out.
Here’s what you’ll need: glittery pipe cleaners, skewers, and scissors.
1. Twist the pipe cleaners to make your sparkler shape.
The only problem was that the pipe cleaners were a little flimsy.
I grabbed some skewer sticks from the pantry and cut off the tip (these are danger-free sparklers, after all).
The boys thought these “sparklers” were pretty cool…
And I’m so glad we won’t be bandaging any burns this year!
Renae says
June 27, 2013 at 1:43 pmThank you! Part of our unit for next week involves fireworks, but like you, I’m terribly worried someone will get hurt, so I don’t allow them. This activity will be perfect! Love it!
Katie says
June 28, 2013 at 5:35 pmI love sparklers but I agree they aren’t safe for little kids. I was once at a party where a large group of adults and children gathered to light sparklers, and one of the kids’ sparklers ended up lighting my friend’s hair on fire – EEK!! Fortunately my friend wasn’t hurt, but the whole situation was unsafe and it could have ended much worse than it did.
JDaniel4's Mom says
June 29, 2013 at 5:30 amI love your version of a sparkler. The real ones make me nervous for same reason you highlighted.
craig says
June 27, 2014 at 8:37 pmReally? Instead of teach safety you give them pipe cleaners and let them learn on their own. Because I am sure they will never run into a friend with fireworks! Going to wait till they do to teach them? Accidents happen, but a scar from a burnt out sparkler is a learning experience, not a problem.
rory says
January 24, 2015 at 6:43 amI totally empathize with appreciate how terrible that experience must’ve been. I know how awful it is to see children hurt, hear them cry, and then nurse them though injury over the time it takes for them to heal. As a parent, it breaks your heart, and I appreciate how you came to this conclusion. However, I don’t agree that entirely abandoning the practice is the best, nor even the safest, way to proceed. Let me explain.
Our job is to raise children into capable adults. One of the most basic aspects of this responsibility is to make sure they get to adulthood intact… not seriously maimed or disabled. You could say that the best way to prevent them from getting seriously injured is to insulate them from dangerous experiences. To me, that’s only partly true. The actual best way to protect them from danger is to teach them to be safe. That means letting them experience a reasonable amount of danger, and sometimes bear the consequences, as a way to learn to respect danger and avoid potentially more serious consequences.
You say, in your first photo, that it was right before your kid got burned, and thus the catalyst for your endeavor to engineer a crafty substitute for fireworks. In your last photo, there’s the same kid, a bit older, and he’s still got two legs. What’s more, he’s now got a much healthier respect for the dangers of fireworks than most kids. Everything is fine, and the only lasting consequence of this is that your son is less likely to be injured in a similar way again.
In the long run, that burn may’ve been a good thing, so don’t go too overboard trying to safe-guard your children’s lives. There’s real danger out there, and it will persist long after you are gone. Protecting our children can only go so far. Teaching them to protect themselves is a much more thorough approach.