4Th of July - North Hollywood,CA

My 28 month old grandson love the poppers, so I see no problem with those. He also loves the "snakes" that you light and watch as they ooze into long black snakes. The rest of the fireworks, he observes from Mama's lap as Papa does the lighting. I do not think that any of the fireworks are safe for a child this age to actually light themselves. Their reaction time is not what it needs to be in order for them to light it and get away in time. I also don't like sparklers, to me they are such weapons...that being said, all of my now adult daughters loved playing with sparklers as children...lol.

Take him to a fiverworks show he is to young to do himself raised 4 and now 7grandchildren A. no hills

I cannot believe that people give young children sparklers. Hello people-they burn at like 1000 degrees!!! These are children and they are by nature impulsive. I am always the bad mom around this time of year-my kids are not allowed anywhere near the homestyle fireworks. At least they won't be a statistic or a news story.

M.-you should research on your own about this....try a google search and I am sure you will find enough ammunition to bring to your husband so he will reconsider his fireworks display. If not, then keep the kids inside and watch from a window.

Are the stars for HIM to light? Or for you and your husband to light? Are these ones that shoot in the air, or shoot across the ground?

And... no small consideration... are they legal in your area?

Sparklers: Be careful. Last year (my son was 3), he held it up above his head and one of the sparks flew in his eye. Luckily it didn't do any permanent damage. We are letting him have sparklers this year, but we have some new rules. If you are talking the large ones (they are not legal in our state), I would say no. Even though they are not legal here, I have been to many parties where people have them. We had one that misfired and headed toward us (again, we were all lucky no one was hurt). I also have a friend that lost his thumb from a firework, I won't go into details....but alcohol was involved so he wasn't being very careful.

Try this, call your local fire department or emergency room and ask them what they think.

M.

I'm not a helicopter parent, but had to post about someone I know -- a child -- who had an accident w/ a sparkler. The sparkler ignited her clothing on accident and she ended up w/ burns on 70% of her body. I won't go into details, but it melted her skin and she has significant scarring all over body. So for all those moms who responded to let the kid have some fun, sure, I agree, but 3 years old is much too young to be handling any time of flammable material. Just my opinion.

I don't let my 4 or 2 year old play with any kind of fireworks. I would never forgive myself if they lost a finger or were burned from an accident. A 3 year old is not old enough to "respect" fire and what it is capable of doing. Good luck!

my son is 4 and since he was 2 we have let him do sparlkers, and then we tell him that only daddy can light the others ones, he does his splakers and then when thoes are gone we sit on the grass and watch daddy light off the big ones. we explan to him that they are very DANGEROUS and that only grown ups can light them and we have not had any problem with that.

Geez! Your husband reminds me of mine.... What's with the secret desire to to FLIRT WITH DISASTER with one's own offspring!!?
Please urge your husband to hold off until the young, defenseless child can better understand how dangerous fireworks can be. People get SEVERE injuries and PERMANENT scars from fireworks every year, around this time. I'm with the M. who suggested calling the local fire dept or E.R.
Good luck. Our husbands can be our biggest child, sometimes.

Let the kid enjoy some fireworks! When I was little we only ever had our own firework display at our house or did our own fireworks are the park with everyone else. I would love to be able to do our own fireworks but they're illegal in Nevada and of course we can watch the firework display at the park/casinos but it was a fun tradition for our family.
Start a tradition! Most of the injuries are from people being idiots. I am sure your husband won't let your 3 yr old light an M-80 in his hand and watch it explode. gosh!

Try and avoid all danger!!! Be scared of your shadow!!!! After all its stalking you.! Never use a knife. You might drop it on your foot. NEVER, NEVER, walk across a street ot get into a car. Think of how many drunk drivers there are put there.

Life is full of danger. The wise know which dangers to avoid and which ones to live with. (I'm amazed parents let their kids have skateboards.) My family and I lived in Arkansas for 18 years. We enjoyed fireworks for 17 4's th of July. I had 5 children born in Arkansas and we NEVER had one accident with fireworks. (My oldest three were born before we moved to Arkansas.) I always bought age appropriate fireworks. My littlest ones got to play with "Morning Glories". As they grew older they were allowed to have sparklers, roman candles, and sky rockets. I was always very careful and supervised them closely. They had fun and learned a lot about the importance of safety.

California's laws on fireworks are moronic. California doesn't allow any fireworks any more exciting than wooden matches. Texas has very liberal fireworks laws as does Arkansas. California has more fireworks injuries than Texas and Arkansas combined. Its not hard to understand why.

Let your kids have age appropriate fireworks and supervise them closely and enjoy their excitement and the wonder and awe in their eyes.

Good luck to you and yours.

While not sparkly like fireworks, we rolled out big sheets of bubble wrap on the sidewalk (and those large packing bubbles they seem to be using now) and let the kids jump on them. It sounded just like fireworks and the kids had a blast! (Really, who can resist bubble wrap!).

If your talking about your husband setting off a display in your driveway or backyard for your 3 year old to enjoy I don't see what the problem is. Again, the people on this site seem so over the top. How is Dad setting off legal firwoks going to hurt anyone? I especially love the Mom who thinks the child should watch from a window!!??!! Most of the injuries from fireworks are from people doing stupid things with them. I assume your husband is mature and responsible enough to handle himself!

We teach them not to play with fire - except for national holidays? Yeah we had fireworks while growing up. I had a firecracker go off in my hand and I lost all feeling in my thumb for 24 hrs. I was very lucky it wasn't permanent.
Another time my Mom used sparklers on a birthday cake and it was very pretty. She was mad when the sparks melted bits of her glass table. Those things burn hot. Glow sticks are WAY safer.
We take our son to see the big town firework displays. My husband keeps his ammo in the gun safe and we don't play with gun powder anymore.

Additional Comment:

A new study by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found that nearly 9,000 people were taken to the emergency room and two people died in 2009 from fireworks-related incidents.
Of them, nearly 6,000 of the injuries took place during the 30 days surrounding last year's 4th of July holiday -- and many resulted in the loss of a limb.

Sheesh! Ever heard of "helicopter parents"? Anyone? Anyone? For goodness sake! Maybe three is a little young for anything that actually ignites, but next year or the year after he could definitely have some. People, if you sanitize your children's lives, metaphorically speaking, then they will grow up with NO immunity. Kids need to be exposed to "responsible use" in everything in order to understand how to handle these things in a safe manner. Stop neutering your children, people!

Do you want your child to be blinded or mamed? Lose a hand? Die?
Have burn scars for life?
If yes get all the fire works you can find.
Bobbie v.O

my father has been a licenced pyrotechnician my entire life. my mom wasnt into it but my dad always let us hold sparklers and light ground bloomers and especially throw the poppers. He was always VERY safety oriented when doing these activities. he had six kids and none of us ever got an injury.

fireworks (like anything else) are only dangerous if you are not correctly supervising your child. Three is definitely too young to play with these things without an adult supervising.

i think it is absolutely fine to let your child enjoy these patriotic festivities, just keep an eye on him and teach him basic safety!

A Few Basic Firework Safety Rules:
1. Always wear 100% cotton clothing. synthetic fibers will fuse to the skin if you get burned.
2. Never light fireworks in or near dry brush! i think thats self explanatory.
3. ALWAYS supervise children under the age of 18 handling any kind of fireworks.
4. Make sure you have a clear space for lighting fireworks. yell "fire in the hole!" after lighting to make sure everyone knows what to expect.
5. Be careful in neighborhood streets that are not blocked off. i have a friend whose neighbor got hit and killed by a car lighting fireworks in the middle of the street.

Do you mean the sparklers? I would have no problem letting my 3 1/2 use one of those.

My brothers and sisters and I played with sparklers, snakes, smoke bombs, etc. when we were children (it was legal). However, I got second degree burns on my fingers by picking up a smoke bomb that I thought had cooled off when I was a kid. I wouldn't let my 4 year old play with them. JMHO :)

Look for anything that does not have gun powder involved... it limits what hubby can get. Gun powder, spark, fire, hot, burn... all negative words. The other issue is how close are the homes in your neighbor hood, our neighbor hood's houses are about 20 feet apart so really no safe place to do them, except at the end of the block (where our house is) and even then we have called the police because the burning ash (or whatever it is) was landing on our garage. As other said google it and you will come up with a lot of articles. I would say stick with going to watch the fireworks :)

With sparklers I am on the fence about those, my parents let us have them when we were 8 years and up. They always were watching us, we could only stand with them and wave our arms around. Out of the four kids none of us every got hurt, but we had strict rules if we did nave one in our hand as well as had to be 8 or older.

Yesterday, I seen a report on the news about fireworks. It said that the hot part of a sparkler reaches 1200 degrees F. Children should not be playing with fireworks nor should anyone who is not a trained professional. The report mentioned to google fireworks injuries and check out the images.

M

Just take him to the local high school or wherever they are having a big fireworks show. In San Diego, we can't even buy fireworks here, so we have no choice but to go to a big show.

ALL fireworks are dangerous. I've never let mine touch them.