Kids and snakes

[CoolioTiffany]

Here's a story of something that I did today that made me feel accomplished

Today, my friend's younger sister (8 y/o) came over with him to my house. He's my neighbor and he comes over to handle my snakes all of the time, and this time he brought his sister with him. His sister is very scared of snakes, so I decided to teach her some things about them. I got out my BP, Candice, to show her how all snakes aren't mean. Candice was the PERFECT example of a nice snake. She's great with people. Anyways, I was holding Candice's head while my friend's sister was petting the snake (I guess it made her feel more comfortable). After a little bit of petting, she wanted to hold her but she wasn't too sure. So I held half of Candice's body and she held the other half (tail end). After that, she held Candice but was a little frightened because Candice kept wanting to smell her hands, but that's just what snakes do. After I was showing her that Candice wouldn't bite or harm her by me petting her head, my friend's sister started petting Candice's head and then after a while she got used to Candice smelling her. After she handled Candice, she held my Dumeril's boa, my Corn snake, and my other BP. She isn't afraid of snakes anymore, in fact, she LOVES them now.

After this happened today, I feel like I want to teach kids that all snakes aren't bad because many kids just think of snakes as scary, mean monsters. They really aren't, they have just heard of the negative things people say about snakes. I think if more people were informed about the positive side of snakes, there wouldn't be so much fear.