On That Note
Any amount of time teaching youths the art of emergency wilderness first aid will teach you one thing: cartoons and TV series need writers who do better research.
Exhibit A: the snake bite. As a summer camp counselor, I would ask first-year scouts, "How do you treat a snakebite?"
"Suck the venom out!"
"Make a cut above the bite to stop the venom from reaching the heart!"
"Use a tourniquet!"
No, no and goodness no, not unless you have formal medical training and really know what you are doing.
Now I have seen a small effort in accuracy in the past few years, but there is still not nearly enough research put into fictional videos concerning anything medical or otherwise scientific.
Please, please do not follow the advice of your favorite movie or show.
I mean, seriously. If you do any of the above, you endanger the bite-victim and/or yourself. Let me explain: Sucking the venom out is not possible because, even if it did work, the person performing the act would then ingest or absorb the venom through the mouth. Just think about how thin the skin is inside your mouth.
Cutting above the wound, or bloodletting, was thrown off by doctors decades ago because it simply increased blood loss. Tourniquets cause the opposite effect of cutting off circulation, which can result in the loss of a limb.
Exhibit B: treating heat stroke. What's the first thing you should do?
"Dump a bucket of cold water on them!" is always among the first suggestions young minds recall.
Thank you to all children's cartoons who have successfully taught viewers how to put someone at risk of going into shock. Think of it like putting glass over heat and then putting it in cold water. If you don't want it to explode, you gradually decrease the temperature in order to cool it enough to handle the cold. The key is doing this as quickly as possible without causing shock.
If you need any more reason to question the authority of what TV, social media and the internet is teaching, just think about how farming is represented to the majority of the nation: Cartoons and movies still depict milking cows as something done by hand.
On that note, don't be shy about watching a show with your child or talking about what they've seen on the internet/social media. You never know what "safety" measures they are learning from today's major influences. Or, better yet, have these conversations while outdoors, experiencing nature!