My Kids best friend and snakes

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Originally Posted by Diamond Serpents

I was thinking the same thing with brining the reptiles to school for a show n tell type of deal. Maybe even have my wife make some cool goody bags with reptile candies and lil snake toys to pass out.

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That would be so cute!! I know I would have loved that kind of thing as a kid. I was always jealous of the kids that had reptile-themed birthday parties :) Too bad mom wasn't down with the creepy crawlies lol

Taking them to school for "show and tell" during their animal unit has been, for us, so much fun and great exposure for the kids, and educational. I have tons of pictures, but am hesitant to post other peoples kids. So here is my daughters teacher with my pastel, as well as a class picture with our bee. I cropped down so as not to include faces, check out the kid behind sneaking an extra pet!

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/08/24/pa3avyqy.jpg

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/08/24/baby9age.jpg

But seriously, establishing a relationship with the kids parents, is going to be better for your son and his friendship in the long run. If the parents trust you, they will trust your judgment. Maybe inviting them over to show them their son is perfectly safe, if they are hesitant. I had a good rapport with my daughter's friend's parents long before she ever came over. Her parents never even questioned or cared about the snakes when she started coming over. I have even texted her mom pics of her holding the snakes while she was sleeping over.

This is so cool of you Doolittle I defiantly can't wait for his first show and tell now!! My wife said she's going to talk to his Mom since they get along pretty good. So we shall see how this goes.

Quick question about your show and tell. How are you transporting the snakes?? I was thinking snake bag then the large round critter cages. Any suggestions or anything you talk about special with the kids while presenting?

That sucks but your point is very valid. If we've learned one thing from childhood to adults it's the fact that people are scared of what they don't know. It's that simple and it's because of the ignorance of people not actually taking the time to do research along with the media broadcasting and calling snakes killers. In fact I'm willing to bet that dogs cause more fatalities each year in the US than snakes, but because of people not knowing about snakes and all they're automatically written off. I've talked to people that are scared of snakes and asked why and you'd be stunned at the most common answer that was given. It was the fact that they moved without any legs.

You did what you thought was right and nobody can ever fault you on that and I personally would of did the same thing you did. One way to tell for sure though is to get to know the parents and maybe mention that you seen a snake the other day and caught it and what not and see what his take on it is. You can usually tell from that simple response what kind of person he is. I think it would also be an awesome idea to bring one of your snakes to show and tell day, or whatever they call it now days. I've done it before.

It won't let me quote you, but-

We usually go towards the end of the year. So its border line summer, and fairly warm. But I put them in tubs, with their hides, and tape hand warmers to one end(on the outside!). Be sure to check temps, they will get to hot. I had to put them in a sock doubled over. This year they were my daughters year end presentation project as well, so we did it a bit differently. Her teacher however, thought it was so cool she asked if we could bring them to her class next year.

We usually start off with telling them a bit about the snakes, while we hold them. Where they come from, what they eat, how we keep them (husbandry stuff). That they arent scary or slimy. My bee is a fabulous for these things. She is pretty, as well as sweet as pie, as well as trustworthy, and does not get stressed from it (she will, and has, eaten as soon as we get home). Depends on your age group, attention span, time you are alotted... Have an open question time, you will find the kids are FULL of questions. We have our daughter answer them.

We usually then will pass around a hand sanitizer for those who wish to pet. Then they get in a line, and we tell them the petting rules. One at a time, no petting/touching/grabbing it's head or tail. No quick moves. We let them take their hand and pet down, with the scales. While they pet, we keep ahold of the end with teeth, just in case. Hand sanitizer after as well.

This year one of my daughters friends asked if they could hold her after petting. I think this is probably the first year age wise I felt comfortable with that. So we had a line of those who wanted to hold, out of a class of 24, 18 held her. My daughter was in charge of placing her in laps and picking her back up, while I took pictures. Funny, she kept trying to get back on my daughter. But the kids just loved it. She had the principals kid in her class, and we sent him as well as another one or two home wanting snakes.

I'm very thankful we have had teachers each year that were open to this (this is our 3rd year). If we reach even a handful of kids each year, and they dont grow up with irrational fears and ideas about snakes, then it has all been worth it.